Assisted suicide: Difference between revisions

That said, assisting suicide is now generally legal as the [[Federal Constitutional Court]] has ruled in 2020 that it is generally protected under the [[Basic Law]]. This milestone decision overturned a ban on the commercialization of assisted suicide and set out an entirely new course for countries or jurisdictions contemplating such a provision.<ref name=BradeFriedrich>{{cite news | vauthors = Brade A, Friedrich R |title= Stirb an einem anderen Tag |url=https://verfassungsblog.de/stirb-an-einem-anderen-tag/ |access-date=17 January 2021 |work=Verfassungsblog |date=16 January 2021}}</ref> Since suicide itself is legal, assistance or encouragement is not punishable by the usual legal mechanisms dealing with complicity and incitement (German criminal law follows the idea of "accessories of complicity" which states that "the motives of a person who incites another person to commit suicide, or who assists in its commission, are irrelevant").<ref name=Wolfslast2008>{{cite book |doi=10.1007/978-1-4020-6496-8_8 |chapter=Physician-Assisted Suicide and the German Criminal Law |title=Giving Death a Helping Hand |series=International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine |year=2008 | vauthors = Wolfslast G |volume=38 |pages=87–95 |isbn=978-1-4020-6495-1 }}</ref>. Whereas the traditional approach for establishing an assisted dying service has always been based on identifying criteria for who was eligible for it predicated on a view regarding a person's acceptable quality of life (e.g. condition of health or illness), the ruling by the German court stated that government in pluralist societies can not do so as it would violate one's autonomy, the principle of person-state separation. That suggests an alternative model for an assisted dying regime similar to that in Switzerland where no government legislated regime was created but where the provision has existed for decades.<ref>Dankwort, J. April 6, 2023.Overcoming impediments to medically assisted dying: A signal for another approach? Journal of Medical Ethics Forum. Accessed September 14, 2023. https://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2023/04/06/overcoming-impediments-to-medically-assisted-dying-a-signal-for-another-approach/?fbclid=IwAR1ab-7KUtW34rZlaD2YcYzZCD14GVCQ9W-2wwd7FKmZJtaG5PKpZM5GUq4</ref>