ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the recent tumultuous developments in the realm of organised assistance with suicide and re-examines the debate that surrounded its criminalisation. The law was passed after years of fierce public and political debate, kindled by the beginning emergence of ‘right-to-die organisations’ in Germany. The court confirmed that the legislator reasonably assessed the dangers to autonomy emanating from unrestricted access to organised assistance with suicide. The proportionality test’s last step, adequacy, requires that the state measure’s adverse effects are not disproportionate in relation to its benefits. In the absence of ‘right-to-die organisations,’ patients were dependent on the willingness of individual physicians to assist with a suicide, at the very least in the prescription of the necessary substances. The argument is common in the medico-ethical debate, particularly on issues such as abortion, assistance with suicide, euthanasia, and pre-natal diagnostics.
