Wednesday 05 May 2021
Germans want liberal law
Doctors’ Day removes the ban on assisted suicide
At the end of February, the Federal Constitutional Court overturned the criminal law paragraph 217, which prohibits the commercial promotion of suicide. Now the German Medical Association has removed this ban from its professional code. It remains to be seen whether this will lead to a more liberal approach to suicides.
The German Medical Association has removed the strict ban on assisting suicide from the professional code for medical professionals. He was responding to a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court in February on assisted suicide, as the German Medical Association announced.
So far, the model professional code for doctors has said: “You are not allowed to assist in suicide.” This could not be maintained in the previous version for constitutional reasons, the doctors’ parliament justified its decision. The constitutional court had established a “right to self-determined death”. The medical professional law was not the subject of the constitutional complaint, but the medical association quoted a sentence from the judges: “Access to the possibility of assisted suicide must not depend on doctors showing that they are prepared to act not according to the written law, but on themselves Arbitrarily disregard it with reference to their own constitutionally guaranteed freedom. ” According to the Doctors’ Day, the deletion does not change the fact that “medical action is shaped by a life- and health-oriented goal”.
According to the model professional regulations, in addition to which there are separate professional regulations of the state medical associations, it is the task of doctors to preserve life, protect and restore health, alleviate suffering, provide assistance to the dying and preserve the natural foundations of life to contribute to their importance for the health of the people. “So it is not part of the range of tasks of the medical profession to help people commit suicide,” explained the German Medical Association. It could never be the task of the medical profession to provide an indication, advice or even carry out a wish to die for people who are not sick.
72 percent of Germans support the legalization of active euthanasia by administering lethal agents. This was the result of a survey by the polling institute YouGov. Two years ago, in April 2019, 67 percent of those surveyed supported this. Assisted suicide – for example, when a doctor helps a terminally ill patient to obtain the fatally effective drug, but the patient takes the drug independently – is supported by 75 percent of those surveyed (2019: 69 percent). The new regulation of the Federal Constitutional Court is welcomed by 49 percent of Germans, 21 percent reject the decision, 31 percent did not commit.
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