Row breaks out over German plan to test law on assisted suicide
BMJ 2008; 336 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39465.463356.DB (Published 24 January 2008) Cite this as: BMJ 2008;336:181- Ned Stafford
- 1Hamburg
The head of the German Medical Association has strongly condemned plans by a retired urologist to help a terminally ill and suffering person to commit suicide to test the law in Germany. Jörg-Dietrich Hoppe warns that he would notify the legal authorities and ask for a prosecution if any such move took place.
In a 14 January newspaper interview Professor Hoppe said that his association does not want “medical doctor assisted suicide to become a medical treatment, because it is not compatible with our medical ethics and because patients would be deeply unsettled” (www.rp-online.de/public/article/aktuelles/wirtschaft/news/521016).
Professor Hoppe’s comments came after reports that Uwe-Christian Arnold, a retired urologist in Berlin who also co-chairs Dignitate-Deutschland, the German branch of the Swiss …
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