Lawmakers in Germany failed to agree on Thursday on new rules regulating assisted suicide, rejecting two cross-party proposals drawn up after the country’s highest court ruled that legislation banning the practice when conducted on a “business” basis was unconstitutional.
The Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 2020 that the ban, which was introduced five years earlier, violated the rights of citizens to determine the circumstances of their own deaths by restricting their ability to seek assistance from a third party.
Active assistance — physically taking a patient’s life for them — is banned in Germany, but passive help, such as providing deadly medication for them to take themselves, has been a legal gray area.
Cross-party groups of lawmakers put forward two competing proposals for new rules. One option would have allowed for doctors to prescribe lethal medication between three and 12 weeks after an adult underwent obligatory counseling.
The other option
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