Swiss Court Opens Assisted Suicides
Pastor Dale Morgan
Feb 2, 10:30 PM EST
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Swiss Court Opens Assisted Suicides*
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- A ruling by Switzerland's highest court
released Friday has opened up the possibility that people with serious
mental illnesses could be helped by doctors to take their own lives.
Switzerland already allows physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill
patients under certain circumstances. The Federal Tribunal's decision
puts mental illnesses on the same level as physical ones.
"It must be recognized that an incurable, permanent, serious mental
disorder can cause similar suffering as a physical (disorder), making
life appear unbearable to the patient in the long term," the ruling said.
"If the death wish is based on an autonomous decision which takes all
circumstances into account, then a mentally ill person can be prescribed
sodium-pentobarbital and thereby assisted in suicide," it added.
Various organizations exist in Switzerland to help people who want to
commit suicide, and assisting someone to die is not punishable under
Swiss law as long as there is no "selfish motivation" for doing so.
The judges made clear in their ruling that certain conditions would have
to be met before a mentally ill person's request for suicide assistance
could be considered justified.
"A distinction has to be made between a death wish which is an
expression of a curable, psychiatric disorder and which requires
treatment, and (a death wish) which is based on a person of sound
judgment's own well-considered and permanent decision, which must be
respected," they said.
The case was brought by a 53-year old man with serious bipolar affective
disorder who asked the tribunal to allow him to acquire a lethal dose of
pentobarbital without a doctor's prescription.
The tribunal ruled against his request, confirming the need for a
thorough medical assessment of the patient's condition.
Whether any Swiss physician would be prepared to prescribe a lethal dose
of pentobarbital to a mentally ill person remains unclear. The country's
national ethics commission could not be reached for comment late on Friday.
One U.S. expert on medical ethics said such a policy would be both
difficult to enforce and dangerous to apply.
"Assisted suicide has always been linked to the challenge of allowing
the terminally ill a choice in managing their inevitable death," said
Dr. Arthur Caplan, chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics at the
University of Pennsylvania. "Linking the right to assistance in dying to
the quality of someone's life or their suffering is an enormous and in
my view very dangerous shift in legal and ethical thinking about
assisted suicide."
Caplan said the policy could lead to a "very slippery slope," opening
the door to anyone who claims to have unbearable psychological or
emotional suffering to request help in dying - people with terrible
burns, those who are severely disfigured, those who are emotionally
bereft at the loss of a child or partner and even those suffering from
career failures.
"This is an incredibly controversial decision," he said. "Is the
doctor's mission to eliminate difficult and horrendous human suffering
by helping people to die?"
Switzerland is one of a number of countries in Europe that allow
assistance to terminally ill people who wish to die.
Netherlands legalized euthanasia in 2001 and Belgium in 2002, while
Britain and France allow terminally ill people to refuse treatment in
favor of death.