On July 6, German legislators stalemated on two multi-party bills on how to regulate assisted suicide after the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 2020 that Germany’s ban was a violation of the right of citizens to choose how to die by prohibiting the participation of medical professionals in the process. Until the ruling, euthanasia – a third party killing a patient, usually by lethal injection – was banned, while provision of the means of suicide (such as “medication”) was in a “legal gray area.”
The 2015 law struck down by the court as unconstitutional permitted assisted suicide for “altruistic motives” while banning it “on business terms” – offering it under those conditions could result in a three-year jail sentence. Many who had been previously engaged in the euthanasia business had stopped their work in response to the ruling. Assisted suicide in Germany is still rare relative to other countries where it has become available.
Lawmakers have been attempting to redraft rules on assisted suicide and euthanasia in the wake of the court’s ruling. One proposal would have legalized doctors prescribing lethal medications between three weeks to three months after the patient had undergone mandatory counseling; Katrin Helling-Plahr of the Free Democratic Party stated that people who decided that they wanted to die should be able to do so without facing any potential legal ramifications.
A second proposal permitted assisted suicide after a psychiatrist determined over the course of two sessions a minimum of three months apart that the person’s desire to commit suicide was of a “voluntary, serious, and permanent nature.” The second proposal included a proviso that the person requesting suicide could not be suffering from a mental illness that would impair their decision-making abilities and stipulated that counseling must also be received from a second and separate doctor.
