A Right To A Self-Determined Death
?I was ecstatic to read the court’s deference to the individual’s prerogative.
https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2020/bvg20-012.html
Together with the recent (last few years) acquittals in Europe of health care workers tried for assisting suicide, Germany’s decision adds another powerful legislative blow against archaic, moralistic, and hypocritical anti-suicide views used as justification for controlling others’ most personal decision.
https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2020/bvg20-012.html
Together with the recent (last few years) acquittals in Europe of health care workers tried for assisting suicide, Germany’s decision adds another powerful legislative blow against archaic, moralistic, and hypocritical anti-suicide views used as justification for controlling others’ most personal decision.
Comments (16)
Just superb. Thank you for sharing this! The language is powerful and precise. I would even say this is an important humanist document.
The intended purpose aside, there are many ways this can be abused.
Signatures can be forged all the time. Normally this is no problem. Even if incapacitated someone can "find" an old document or will that in actually didn't exist before the person's incapacitation. Difference is, this makes it easy to legally murder someone. No questions asked. Because the state is the killer and there's nothing to hide.
What on earth? So people are going to start forging papers to get people to go through a process of suicide in an attempt to murder them? I mean, come on.
What this does mean is that the State cannot force a person to stay alive and suffer until the last breath. This is truly a triumph, the document contains tremendous beauty and powerful arguments.
"Where, in the exercise of this right, an individual decides to end their own life, having reached this decision based on how they personally define quality of life and a meaningful existence, their decision must, in principle, be respected by state and society as an act of autonomous self-determination."
Win for intelligence! Win for freedom! Schopenhauer is applauding from his grave.
It's called a divergence from your preconceived notions. Earth shattering, I know. To be fair, you're in the majority there.
If I'm say I don't know horribly depressed and want to shoot myself but for some reason cannot gather the will to do so, perhaps I'd ask somebody to do it for me. Ergo, if such a document allowing somebody to do so is now legal, all I have to do is enter somebody's home with a pistol, shoot them, and show the cops a document one could presumably in the idea of freedom, print out from their home computer and sign. Not complicated.
Don't always see it as a tool for misconduct.
"The right to a self-determined death is not limited to situations defined by external causes like serious or incurable illnesses, nor does it only apply in certain stages of life or illness. Rather, this right is guaranteed in all stages of a person’s existence. Restricting the scope of protection to specific causes or motives would essentially amount to a substantive evaluation, and thereby predetermination, of the motives of the person seeking to end their own life, which is alien to the Basic Law’s notion of freedom. The individual’s decision to end their own life, based on how they personally define quality of life and a meaningful existence, eludes any evaluation on the basis of general values, religious dogmas, societal norms for dealing with life and death, or considerations of objective rationality. It is thus not incumbent upon the individual to further explain or justify their decision; rather, their decision must, in principle, be respected by state and society as an act of autonomous self-determination." Ibid.
If that's the intent, it raises interesting questions (at least I think so): May someone assisting a suicide charge for their services? If so, how much should they be allowed to charge? Leave that to the market?
Who'd be responsible for payment? I imagine payment "up front" would be demanded. A whole new industry for regulation!
Agreements to commit a crime are generally void, and so unenforceable. So, anyone performing the service would want money up front. But even if there was no crime, that would be the smart way to go. Otherwise, the suicide's estate may be liable depending on the law, but why bother with whatever procedure that would require?
If the agreement was legal, I suppose the obligation to pay could be guaranteed by someone who could be collected against after the suicide, but again money up front would be best for the...Assistor? The Terminator? I can't help but imagine the advertising which would be generated by those providing the service for money.
Of course there's a problem here. Some people are severely depressed when they make this decision, but it is indeed hard to argue that we have the right to hold them to suffering. There is more to it than just the immediate state, this is brought about by other conditions. In order for life to be worth living it must have quality conditions. There is a hard logic here that people are not ready to accept, and that is the fact that life cannot be unconditionally justified, there are times when it is foolish to continue living. In these circumstances all one is doing is prolonging suffering out of fear or idealism.
I don't know how many of those who have committed suicide or who contemplate suicide are making "autonomous, self-determined decisions."
I don't think suicide is appropriate solely because someone wants to die. I dislike the concept of "rights" in morals, though I think it has a place in law and for the purpose of protecting civil liberties. So, it isn't clear to me anyone would have a non-legal right to die regardless of the circumstances. At the same time, though, I don't think the law should prohibit suicide in all cases, or make assisting in it criminal in all cases.
There's a distinction between law and morals. I prefer virtue ethics in part because I tire of people insisting they have non-legal rights which must be respected in all cases.
I think the decision whether or not suicide is proper has to be made on a case by case basis. I don't think, for example, that suicide is necessarily justified where others depend on the person contemplating suicide for their well being (financial or otherwise). In that case, their interests should be considered. Suicide isn't merely a selfish concern. If others will suffer significantly and needlessly because of a suicide, I don't think the decision to commit suicide would be virtuous. Suicide obviously isn't appropriate where the potential suicide is incapable of making an informed decision or suffering from a delusion motivating the suicide.
But there are circumstances where suicide may be appropriate. When someone is presented with an intolerable choice to be made, such as when the circumstance is such that one either must die or others must die, for example.
This all makes the decision whether or not to commit suicide and whether to make it subject to law a difficult question.
Quoting tim wood
I don't think there is any such obligation. There is no duty to help someone to commit suicide, though one may do so voluntarily.
About the law. Suicide in itself shouldn't be criminal. People who make informed decisions which impact only their own lives should be allowed to do so. Assisting someone who wants to die because they're subject to a treatable mental disease may be criminal, however.
Yes, I agree with much of what you said here, but even this category is not absolute enough to sustain itself. Conversations need to be had regarding psychologically induced states, clarifications need to be brought and verified. Not easy to do. Is the burden of proof on the depressed person? Social help is required. Interesting, this is not how conservatism works. They shout from the rooftops about the dignity and importance of life and then they do everything to remove the social structures that are necessary to life's quality.