By The Defender
The Swiss Medical Association has clarified its attitude toward assisted suicide – and it is very restrictive. Switzerland, the jurisdiction with the longest-standing legislation allowing for assisted suicide, has in recent years come increasingly under pressure to further liberalise its laws.
The country has the morbid reputation as the international destination for ‘suicide tourism’.
The guidelines provided by the Swiss Medical Association state that “assisted suicide for healthy persons is not medically and ethically justifiable”. Guidelines also state that doctors should remain free to conscientiously object to participation in the process.
“The true role of physicians in the management of dying and death, however, involves relieving symptoms and supporting the patient. Their responsibilities do not include offering assisted suicide, nor are they obliged to perform it. Assisted suicide is not a medical action to which patients could claim to be entitled…”
It is commendable that the Swiss Medical Association have made such a clear declaration, and while not legally binding, brings the associations ethical guidelines on par with those issued in 2018 by the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences.
Predicably, the statement was not appreciated by commercial assisted suicide organisations operating in Switzerland. Commentator Michael Cook said they “complained that the guidelines would make it more difficult to provide help to those who want to end their lives.”
However, hope that the new guidelines will change how these commercial operations is probably misguided.
The statement came against a background of high-profile cases where perfectly healthy people traveled to Switzerland to end their lives, including the shocking recent case of two healthy Arizona sisters who were presumed missing, but had fulfilled a joint suicide pact together legally there for a cost of $17,700 NZD.
The sisters, Lila Ammouri and Susan Frazier, a doctor and a nurse, had told family they were off on a European holiday in early February and were reported missing when they did not return. Brother Cal Biglari was in complete shock when he found out about the death of his healthy sisters.
He also said that co-workers received text message replies they believe were not written by his sisters.
“Some of the text communications they had, we are certain they were not from them. They were most likely fabricated with someone else. Why would you leave your jobs, your home, your loved ones, just abandon everything,” Cal said to the Daily Mail. “I just want some answers.”
The news also comes as Canada seeks to allow people with a mental illness to end their lives through assisted suicide or euthanasia. Something presumably the Swiss Medical Association wouldn’t have a bar of given their statement.
