# Ethical Counseling on Assisted Suicide in German and Swiss Right‐To‐Die Organizations: Challenges and Perspectives

## TL;DR

The paper compares ethical counseling in right-to-die organizations in Germany and Switzerland, focusing on how they uphold ethical standards in assisted suicide.

## Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of the role and responsibilities of ethicists in these organizations.

## Key findings

- Ethical counseling is crucial for maintaining standards in the absence of state regulation.
- The paper highlights differences in the scope and responsibility of ethics committees in Germany and Switzerland.

## Abstract

During the last years, more and more countries have introduced a practice of assisted dying in their medical system and regulated it by separate laws or by additions to the existing body of criminal law. In this respect, the two neighboring countries, Germany and Switzerland, are exceptional cases. In both countries, there exists a long‐standing and largely uncontested legal prohibition of euthanasia, but only minimal state regulation concerning assisted suicide. Right‐to‐die organizations face the challenge of filling the gap by defining their own rules. In this, the largest right‐to‐die organizations in both countries are advised by individual ethicists or ethics committees, with the mission to uphold ethical standards. The paper compares the role of ethical counseling in these organizations (in which the authors are the heads of the respective ethics committees) and describes the scope of their counseling work and the extent of their responsibility for maintaining an ethically defensible practice.