A Suicide Right for the Mentally Ill? A Swiss Case Opens a New Debate‪.‬

Advocates for the legalization of assisted suicide in the United States, including those who sponsored Oregon's Death with Dignity Act in 1994 and current backers of California's proposed Compassionate Choices Act, have sought to permit the practice only under highly limited circumstances--namely, when the requesting patient is terminally ill. (1) In contrast, the Netherlands allows physician-assisted suicide in nonterminal cases of "lasting and unbearable" suffering, and Belgium authorizes physician-assisted suicide for nonterminal patients when their suffering is "constant" and "cannot be alleviated." (2) Yet no country has laws on the subject as liberal as those of Switzerland, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1918. It remains the only jurisdiction that allows nonresidents to terminate their own lives. (3) It is also the only jurisdiction that does not require that a physician be involved in the process. Now, a recent decision by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court threatens to undermine yet another longstanding taboo in the debate over assisted suicide and euthanasia. In its ruling on November 3, 2006, the high tribunal in Lausanne laid out guidelines under which, for the first time, assisted suicide will be available to psychiatric patients and others with mental illness. (4)