Demands to make assisted suicide illegal

Prompted by the highly publicised assisted suicide of an American woman on 1 November, Germany’s bishops have reiterated their call on the German Government to forbid assisted suicide by law, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.

Brittany Maynard, 29, who suffered from incurable brain cancer, ended her life under legal physician-assisted suicide provisions in the state of Oregon. In the weeks before her suicide, she became a prominent advocate of assisted suicide, and her cause was embraced by campaigners.

“Protective walls must be erected against choosing the wrong path that  normalises suicide and, in the final instance, leads to death on demand, in other words against all organised forms of assisted suicide,” Cardinal Reinhard Marx told the German Focus magazine.