Eugen Brysch, chair of the Stiftung Patientenschutz, urges the federal government to ban commercial assisted dying. Speaking to the “Rheinische Post” (Friday edition), he warned that an increasing number of providers are entering the market, with undertakers and doctors collaborating to capitalize on organized, paid self‑death services.
According to Brysch, the number of such offers is rising sharply. He estimates that at least 1,300 organized assisted suicides occur each year, and that the true figure is likely higher because individual entrepreneurs are also active.
He calls on Parliament to finally prohibit profit‑driven assisted‑suicide services and to subject individual helpers to criminal liability. Brysch stresses that it must be unequivocally ensured that a person’s wish to die is self‑determined and free from external influence or pressure. “A legal regulation from the middle of parliament is overdue” he said.
Brysch also calls for greater transparency. Cases should be systematically recorded in mortality statistics, because such rapid increases in a few years are unprecedented in Europe. He believes that a societal discourse that increasingly frames care and aging as burdens contributes to the problem.
In criticizing the current debate over the health‑care financing reform, Brysch noted that discussions focus solely on money, not on content. He added that a cold cost‑analysis hits vulnerable, often elderly people who are not acutely dying. “Those providers of self‑death profit the most” he said. “Their business model channels more than six million euros into their accounts each year”.
