Citation

Schailenberg P. Catholica 2020; 74(4): 278-286.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

This essay deals with the question of the evaluation of assisted suicide from a Christian perspective. The current occasion is the judgement of the German Federal Constitutional Court from February 2020 on the admissibility of assisted suicide. Absolute human dignity resists the absolute vulnerability of human life and prohibits any form of absolute instrumentalisation, which means a rejection of absolute patient autonomy and the unconditional right to assistance in suicide. God and the unconditionally objectively valid dignity of living human beings are two sides of the same coin in this view. But then it is also clear: Life as a gift and task can only be accepted by God, not by the state and its jurisdiction. Anything else would be to be understood as paternalism that is also to be rejected from a Christian point of view. Whether the legal system and medicine can make the task of the gift easier and bearable is a second important, albeit subordinate question. © 2020 Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung. All rights reserved.

Language: de