In 2017, a Swiss doctor prescribed pentobarbital, a drug used in anesthesia, to a healthy 86-year-old woman who wanted to die alongside her seriously ill husband. Before consulting the doctor, the woman had already signed a notarised document stating that she could not psychologically bear the prospect of living without her husband.
Pierre Beck, the doctor, was later charged with infringing Switzerland’s Narcotics Act by Geneva’s public prosecutor. This week the case was dismissed by a federal court, and Beck was acquitted of violating the Act, reported SRF.
In February 2023, the case was sent from Geneva’s judiciary to Switzerland’s federal court. The question posed to the federal judges was whether Beck had infringed the Narcotics Act. Four out of the five judges agreed that he hadn’t. The court decided that the drug pentobarbital does not fall under the Act and that the Act does not address the central issue in this case.
The presiding judge also stated that when the Narcotics Act was created, it did not envision regulating assisted suicide.
In addition, Beck, who is also a former vice president of Exit Western Switzerland, could not be prosecuted under Article 115 of the Criminal Code. This only applies when someone forces another person to commit suicide for selfish reasons, which was not so in this case.
This case was important because it involves assisting the suicide of someone in good health. The normal process for deciding whether suicide assistance should be provided involves establishing whether an individual is terminally ill and suffering.
The Swiss Academy of Sciences’ guidelines on euthanasia to the medical profession only refer to sick people. However, as the judges noted, these guidelines are of an ethical nature and are not law.
Whether this case will lead to a more open approach to aiding people to end their own lives is unclear.
More on this:
SRF article (in German)
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