Article

Assisted dying

Comment

Politics

25 November 2024

7 min read

Assisted dying hasn’t resolved Swiss end of life debates

Despite attempts to normalise it, new challenges still arise.

Markus Zimmerman

Markus is Professor of Moral Theology and Ethics at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.

A single bed, wiith an unmade colourful duvet stands in the corner of a room. A hoist reaches over it from the corner.

The dying room, Dignitas Clinic, Zurich.

Dignitas.

While countries such as Germany, France or the UK are currently struggling to find a suitable regulation for assisted suicide, their peers in the Netherlands, Canada and Switzerland have years of experience with the controversial medical practice. Even if each state must explore its own ways of dealing with these ethically controversial issues, it is obvious that international experience should not be ignored as they try to find a way forward.

In Switzerland the discussions and challenges surrounding assisted suicide are increasing rather than decreasing. Contrary to the idea that a liberalisation of assisted suicide would lead to fewer debate, tensions and difficulties are increasing. My observation, and thesis, indicates that practices such as assisted suicide cannot be “normalised”, even in the medium and long term.

Developments

In recent years, one to two per cent of all deaths in Switzerland were due to assisted suicide. From an overall perspective, this practice is therefore still a marginal phenomenon. However, a look at the total number of assisted suicides per year gives a different impression, as this has increased more than fivefold in the years between 2008 and 2020, from an initial 253 to 1,251 deaths per year, a rising trend. The cause of death statistics for Switzerland only include those cases of assisted suicide in which persons resident in Switzerland were involved and the death was reported to the authorities. According to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, in 2020, it was mainly people over the age of 64 who made use of assisted suicide. Detailed information on the underlying illnesses of the people affected in 2018 shows that about 40 per cent were affected by cancer, just under 12 per cent by diseases of the nervous system, a further 12 per cent by cardiovascular diseases and just over a third by other illnesses, including dementia and depression. There are currently seven right-to-die organisations in Switzerland which play a leading role in a typical assisted suicide procedure. They work closely with doctors who are prepared to prescribe a lethal drug, generally Pentobarbital. The data reflects an ambivalent picture: on the one hand, the proportion of assisted suicide cases is relatively low in relation to all deaths and, for example, in comparison to the large number of people who die in Switzerland in a state of deep sedation until death; on the other hand, the number of assisted suicides in Switzerland has risen sharply in recent years.

Perceptions and assessments

Since the 1990s, the public perception and assessment of assisted suicide in Swiss society has changed from an initially cautious and sceptical attitude towards broad acceptance. While the debates in other countries are characterised by relatively sharp controversies between those in favour and those against, public discourse in Switzerland has been less polarised. There are indications of a certain normalisation of the situation, the strongest sign is that Switzerland has so far refrained from regulating assisted suicide in a separate law. The results of a recently-published study on the opinions of Swiss people over the age of 55 regarding assisted suicide confirm these impressions.: The survey showed that over four-fifths of respondents support legal assisted suicide, almost two-thirds can imagine asking for assisted suicide themselves at some point, and that almost one-third are considering becoming members of an right-to-die organisation in the near future, with one-twentieth of respondents already being members at the time of the survey in 2015. Among people with a higher level of education and older people aged between 65 and 74, approval of assisted suicide and corresponding practices was higher than among less educated, younger and very old people; approval was also significantly lower among religious practitioners.

Sensitive topics

The fact that assisted suicide enjoys broad support in Swiss society as a whole does not mean that there are not difficult and controversial aspects relating to its practice. Relevant topics include, in particular, places of death, authorisation criteria and procedures.

Places of death: Assisted suicide is permitted also for mentally ill persons in psychiatric clinics, but the federal court recommends great caution here and requires two psychiatric expert opinions to ensure that the person willing to die is capable of judgement with regard to the desire to commit suicide. Although assisted suicide for children and adolescents has hardly been an issue in Switzerland to date, the corresponding debates are currently being held in Canada and elsewhere. The question of whether people in prison also have a right to make use of assisted suicide, has been the subject of intense debate in Switzerland for years, with a generally positive response. The question of whether right-to-die organisations should be given access to acute hospitals and nursing homes is still the subject of controversial debate, with regulations varying from hospital to hospital, nursing home to nursing home

Authorisation criteria: With regard to the admission criteria for persons willing to die, the capacity for judgement is at the centre of attention: while the importance of the criterion is undisputed in itself, there is a struggle for reliable standards and procedures to reliably test this criterion. Since the publication of the SAMS ethical guidelines Management of Dying and Death in 2018, the criterion for end of life and, depending on this, that of unbearable suffering have received new attention due to an objection by the Swiss Medical AssociationFMH. While the guidelines are based on the criterion of unbearable suffering, the FMH wants to stick to the near end of life. It is certainly difficult to diagnose the existence of unbearable suffering, as the international debate on the significance and assessment of existential (neither physical nor psychological) suffering shows. This difficulty is illustrated by the debate that has been going on for several years in Switzerland about so-called old-age suicide and the inherent criterion of tiredness of life. At the centre of the dispute is the legally difficult question of whether a doctor is also allowed to prescribe a lethal drug to a healthy person.

Procedures: Here the role of the medical profession and right to die organisations is by far the most important issue. In contrast to the physician-centred models in Belgium, Canada and the Netherlands, the Swiss model of assisted suicide is based on the idea that every person has the right to end their life and may call on the help of any other person to do so. Although the medical profession is usually involved in the process, the management of the procedure is normally the responsibility of a right-to-die organisation. This division of responsibilities is always up for debate when legal regulations are being considered, in which doctors should tend to take the lead in the process due to their professional background. There is also a debate about how and by whom compliance with the authorisation criteria should or could be monitored, whereby it remains to be decided whether this should be carried out before or after the death. At present, a certain amount of monitoring takes place following a suicide, insofar as the authorities investigate the cases afterwards. There is also debate as to whether Pentobarbital is a suitable means of suicide, especially if this barbiturate is not administered intravenously but taken orally; there is no knowledge of how many cases are currently administered intravenously and by whom an infusion is then set up. Last but not least, consideration has already been given to the use of lethal drugs, such as helium gas, which can be obtained over the counter.

Attempts at regulation

Political efforts to regulate assisted suicide in Switzerland in a more nuanced way than today have been made since the 1990s but have remain largely without consequences to date. In relevant judgements by the Federal Supreme Court or in statements by the Federal Department of Justice and Police, reference is regularly made to the ethical guidelines of the SAMS. These are classified as soft law and are therefore not legally binding, even though their content has become the subject of dispute. The National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics (NCE) had already recommended more far-reaching legal regulation in 2005 as part of a detailed opinion on the subject; in the opinion of the NCE at the time, the review of authorisation criteria, a justifiable regulation of assisted suicide for the mentally ill, children and adolescents and state supervision of right-to-die organisations, should be ensured by law. The question is what form a legal regulation can take that grants the medical profession far-reaching powers but at the same time prevents medical paternalism (in favour of or against assisted suicide). From the perspective of Swiss experience, this is “a square circle”: either the doctors retain the final decision on who receives the barbiturate, or official access rules are established, the review of which does not generally require medical expertise.

The outlook

In the short and medium term, it can be assumed that the number of assisted suicides in Switzerland will continue to rise. The coronavirus pandemic and the particular difficulties faced by nursing homes during this time are likely to exacerbate this increase. In view of these expectations and the legislative processes in other European countries, pressure is likely to increase in Switzerland to create a legal regulation. Overall, I think politically it will be important to create a legal regulation, in order to ensure legal equality and legal certainty on the one hand and prevention of abuse and expansion on the other. At the centre of social-ethical reflection is the challenge of learning to deal with the pluralism of different ideas of a good death and to develop and establish alternative models to medically assisted dying. The thesis I mentioned at the beginning is confirmed today: assisted suicide in Switzerland can hardly be normalised; new problems, challenges and demands are constantly arising. Suicide, whether with or without the help of another person, always means an existential transgression that defies normalisation.

Column

Assisted dying

Care

Comment

14 November 2024

4 min read

Proposed euthanasia safeguards insult our NHS

We must defend a collective sense of care and generosity.

George Pitcher

George is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and an Anglican priest.

A gable end mural depicts a nurse in scrubs and a mask turning and looking towards the viewer.

A mural of an NHS nurse during COVID, Manchester.

Mural Republic

It was, I believe, the late political satirist Simon Hoggart who coined the Law of the Ridiculous Reverse, which held that, if the opposite of a statement is plainly absurd, then it was not worth making in the first place.

This law comes to mind when Labour MP Kim Leadbeater promises that her Assisted Dying Bill will have the “strictest safeguards in the world”, one of which is that those patients who have ordered their fatal dose “would be allowed to change their mind at any time.”

Where, exactly, has it ever been suggested that an individual, having asked for an assisted death, would not be allowed to change their mind? I’m just wondering which legislator or medical professional has proposed that once a lethal draught has been prescribed then there is no turning back.

I’m struggling to picture the circumstance in which a terminally ill patient is pinned down and killed, the last words that they hear being: “I’m sorry Mrs Simpkins, but everyone’s gone to a lot of trouble. You asked for it and you’re jolly well going to get it.”

This is important because, apparently, being able to change your mind about asking for help to kill yourself is one of the strictest safeguards in the world. I hope Ms Leadbeater will forgive me for pointing out that this doesn’t really stack up.

And what’s serious about it is that it’s also a massive straw man argument. The clear and rather devious implication is that one of the arguments being made against the introduction of an assisted suicide law is that patients won’t be able to change their minds about it, which I think we can all accept simply isn’t a fact at all. It’s absurd – a Ridiculous Reverse.

So I’ll defend the NHS with a religious fervour. To my mind, healthcare is a holy mission. We meddle in law with the Hippocratic Oath at our very deep peril.

It’s also hugely contemptuous of the medical profession in general and rude to the NHS in particular. That’s because there’s a snide impression behind Leadbeater’s comment there may be hundreds of budding Harold Shipman out there, but her powerful safeguards are going to protect us from them.

We’re in danger of becoming inured to this kind of insult from politicians directed at the NHS. And it’s worth exploring why they might think we need to be protected from unscrupulous doctors and nurses. In this case, one possible reason is that the NHS isn’t being particularly helpful in giving the euthanasia enthusiasts what they want.

Doctors and their staff have plenty of ethical objections to assisted suicide. But leave those aside for a moment. At the practical level, the NHS has made it clear that it doesn’t have the infrastructure to operate a policy of assisted deaths safely. And it can’t afford to set one up. So a government that introduces assisted suicide is going to have to organise and regulate its own assisted death agency.

“Oh,” the assisted dying lobbyists seem to exclaim, “we’d presumed you’d do as you’re told.” Just hand out the hemlock. Take your instructions from the legislature.

But the NHS is better than that. And it’s that kind of high principle that so infuriates feckless politicians. It was the late Nigel Lawson who said, somewhat ruefully, that the NHS “is the closest thing the English have to a religion”. The right wing of politics regularly tells us it’s time to renounce that religion.

To worship the NHS as a religion would, literally, be idolatrous. But it’s not so to acknowledge its religious qualities. Just look at the word – the Latin religio means something like “good faith”, the essence of who we are, what makes us good.

The NHS, in its post-war incarnation, has been central to who we are as a people and what defines us. It’s something to do with our collective sense of care and generosity to one another. Its members, like our national Church, make up a single body.

This is not to co-opt the NHS as the medical wing of the Church. It’s no part of the NHS’s brief to proselytize – rather the reverse; Christian medical staff have been in deep disciplinary trouble for evangelising. It is a profoundly secular organisation.

So the NHS emphatically isn’t in the business of propagating the gospel. But that’s not to say that we can’t be in the same business. Many priests have stories of their most affirming work being in the company of people of other faiths or of none.

The NHS’s proud heritage is to offer treatment free to anyone at the point of access. Put another way, it will seek to heal anyone who comes to it. I make no apology for saying that sounds familiar.

So I’ll defend the NHS with a religious fervour. To my mind, healthcare is a holy mission. We meddle in law with the Hippocratic Oath at our very deep peril.

And when NHS professionals tell us where we can stick our assisted suicides, I respectfully suggest we give it our solemn attention, rather than patronisingly offering a Law of the Ridiculous Reverse.