The Protestant leading clergy and the Catholic bishops in Lower Saxony consider suicide assistance as an "institutional offer" to be incompatible with the church's self-image.

However, there is no general answer to the question of whether assisted suicide in “borderline and emergency situations” can be tolerated in church buildings.

In the ecumenical statement, which is exclusively available to the FAZ, it says that in any case, in addition to the self-determination of those who want to commit suicide, the responsibility for those who are affected must also be taken into account, for example for the relatives, the roommates and the employees.

Daniel Deckers

responsible for “The Present” in the political editorial department.

  • Follow I follow

Well-known Protestant theologians, including the President of the Diakonie, Ulrich Lilie, and the Hanoverian Bishop Ralf Meister, had pleaded in the FAZ at the beginning of last year for those who would like to commit suicide in diaconal institutions "under controlled and responsible framework conditions in a respect arising from the Christian faith offer advice, support and accompaniment before self-determination”.

"Empowering alternatives to suicide"

Since then, charitable and diaconal institutions have been struggling to find an attitude that does justice to both the tenor of the euthanasia judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court of February 26, 2020 and the Christian understanding of autonomy as a relational freedom that goes hand in hand with responsibility.

The church leaders in Lower Saxony are now strengthening the position of those who currently consider categorical definitions to be inadvisable.

At the same time, they want to throw the weight of all church institutions into the balance in order to strengthen "alternatives to suicide" and thereby prevent suicide from becoming a social normality.

Above all, a significant expansion of low-threshold offers for suicide prevention is indispensable.

"Professionally competent and humane hospice work and palliative care promote quality of life and dying with dignity".

The Protestant and Catholic counseling facilities and services also play an important role.

People who expressed a desire for suicide assistance needed “easily accessible, independent and multi-perspective advice, including measures to alleviate physical, psycho-sexual and existential suffering or to improve the quality of life.”

The clergy, on the other hand, have doubts as to whether the Bundestag would be well advised to take every conceivable individual case into account when drawing up a legislative protection concept.

According to the clergy, borderline situations that cannot be assessed from the outside cannot be regulated by law, but “clarified in mutual trust at the level of the relationship between those who are willing to die and the doctors”.

In turn, they want to establish educational and advisory services for employees in church institutions in order to be able to support the people entrusted to them competently and in solidarity in all situations.

"We make our life-affirming attitude clear and at the same time don't want to leave anyone alone," says Solomonic.