Wishes to Die of Palliative Cared People in Serious Illness

Carola Röder

Normative conflicts around physician-assisted suicide in Germany 2004-2011. A contemporary ethical study with expert interviews

The German Medical Association publishes guidelines and principles on problems of medical practice at irregular frequencies. Since 1979, it has also done so on the topic of physician end-of-life care. In February 2011, the "Principles of the German Medical Association on End-of-Life Care by Physicians" were updated and thus replaced the previous version of May 2004. There were clearly differing opinions about the interpretation of the new principles. For example, some commentators interpreted the new version of the principles as liberalizing the position of the German Medical Association on the subject of physician-assisted suicide, while some representatives of the German Medical Association contradicted this view.

In June 2011, the German Medical Congress took place in Kiel, where the topic of "physician-assisted suicide" was an item on the agenda. Here, the German Medical Association clarified its position on physician-assisted suicide by amending §16 "Assistance for the dying" of the "(Model) Professional Code for German Physicians." With the resolution to amend the ("Model") Professional Code of Conduct, the German Medical Association for the first time explicitly formulates the prohibition of physician-assisted suicide, which goes beyond criminal law. This is because assisted suicide is not prohibited under criminal law. The same criminal law situation rose again after the cassation of the in the meantime decided § 217 StGB (prohibition of business-like assisted suicide) by the Federal Constitutional Court on February 26, 2020.

In my dissertation on contemporary history and ethics, I would like to take a closer look at the debate on physician-assisted suicide and specifically examine the developments in the period from 2004 to 2011. To do so, I would like to conduct interviews with contemporary witnesses and experts. The interviews are intended to provide insight into the details of the debate and to explore the backgrounds and motives of the persons and institutions involved, which are not sufficiently comprehensible on the basis of published texts. The semi-structured expert interviews will be conducted in addition to an analysis of documents and will serve to clarify the situation and to develop possible solutions.