RTS (translated into English)
Following the use of the Sarco capsule in the canton of Schaffhausen, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of States has decided to hold hearings. It could tighten up the law.
It happened five months ago in the canton of Schaffhausen. An American woman, supported by an aid-to-suicide association that was little known in Switzerland, ended her life in a capsule known as a ‘Sarco’ for sarcophagus. The case caused quite a stir in Switzerland and a criminal investigation is under way.
The move also attracted the attention of the Council of States. Its Legal Affairs Committee has decided to hold hearings to see whether the legal framework should be strengthened.
State Councillor Heidi Z’graggen (Le Centre/Uri) put the issue on the table. ‘I think Sarco has provoked a lot of public reaction, including in my own circle. There was a kind of deep concern at the idea that people might die or want to die in a machine,’ she explained on Sunday’s RTS 19h30 programme.
A societal problem
In Switzerland today, the legal framework is liberal: helping a third party to commit suicide is not a crime, unless driven by a selfish motive.
For Mauro Poggia (MCG/GE), also a member of the Legal Affairs Committee of the States, this framework should not be tightened up. ‘I think it would be an admission of weakness to try to resolve this societal problem through legislation. Today, the players involved in the process are talking to each other and looking for solutions’, he asserts.
‘The situation has changed‘
Another factor has entered the debate on assisted suicide: the Pierre Beck case, named after the former vice-president of the assisted-suicide association Exit, who was acquitted by the Federal Court last year after helping a healthy, but not dying, woman in her eighties to die.
Samia Hurst-Majno, professor of medical ethics at the University of Geneva, believes that helping a person who is in good health to die has set a precedent. ‘We need to look again at the issue of assisted suicide at federal level. There could be any number of conclusions that come out of this exercise, but I think we need to realise that the situation has changed,’ she said.
In her view, elected representatives could create a law on assisted suicide that would tighten up the current framework.
‘Violent suicide’ feared
For Pierre Beck, who has helped around 200 people to leave, toughening up the law would not, however, take anything away from the determination of people who want to die. ‘Some, perhaps, will do nothing at all and agree to die a natural death or through palliative care. But there are a certain number who will commit violent suicide. It’s very damaging for their loved ones and for society in general,’ he believes.
In the end, will the legal framework surrounding assisted suicide be tightened? The ball is in the court of the federally elected representatives.
