In Switzerland, assisted suicide has long been considered a legitimate end-of-life option. And the support of the population is great. The “Exit” association advises and accompanies people on this path.
The office of “Exit” Managing Director Bernhard Sutter is located in a quiet residential area in the south-east of Zurich. A modern flat roof building, the blinds in front of the large windows are down. From the outside, there is nothing to indicate that the largest Swiss euthanasia organization has its headquarters here.
There is no particular reason for the discretion – in any case, “Exit” does not have to fear protest demonstrations in Zurich. “That doesn’t exist in Switzerland at all, because there is a lot of support in Switzerland,” says Sutter.
Bernhard Sutter is head of the oldest euthanasia organization in Switzerland, “Exit”. Photo: Markus Senn
membership records at Swiss euthanasia organizations
Sutter sees this in the club’s steady growth. “Exit” currently has more than 155,000 members – more than at any time since it was founded in 1982. Last year the association accompanied 1,125 people in their suicide. The mean age was 79.6 years.
Other euthanasia organizations in Switzerland are also reporting membership records. This is mainly due to the aging society, says Managing Director Sutter. “In the early days of euthanasia, we were somewhere under one percent of all deaths in Switzerland. Today we’re somewhere at two percent of all deaths in Switzerland,” says Sutter.
It is quite clear that more people than before are taking advantage of the offer. But there can be no question of what was followed very closely at the beginning: whether suddenly many people would die like this and “infect” others with it. “There can be no question of that. We see that now after 40 years,” says Sutter.
Euthanasia only for the terminally ill
Unlike the organization “Dignitas”, which also accepts people from abroad, “Exit” only helps people with a Swiss passport or residence. The association works like an insurance company: For an annual fee of 45 francs, “Exit” offers comprehensive advice and – if desired – terminal care.
In Switzerland, however, assisted suicide is only an option for people who can be shown to be suffering from an incurable disease and who are fully capable of making decisions. Those who wish to die must also take the deadly drug themselves.
“Each individual death with an exit is immediately investigated by the police, forensic medicine and the public prosecutor’s office. So if we did something that wasn’t allowed, we are threatened with criminal proceedings and imprisonment,” says Sutter.
suicide especially for family members not easy
Mark Büdenbender is German and had been living in Switzerland for 20 years when he was diagnosed with advanced cancer in his mid-40s. Since then, he and his wife have been “Exit” members. Büdenbender says:
I have always lived self-determined and I want to die self-determined.
Whatever that would look like. He wants the option to choose one path or the other.
Büdenbender has been living with the deadly disease for several years now. Fortunately, chemotherapy and surgery were successful. He was grateful to Switzerland, he wrote in the members’ magazine of “Exit”, that he had “free choice up to the last hour”.
Even if the preparations for the suicide option weren’t easy, his wife Tanja says. “You really discuss the process in detail. Where it takes place, how you sit, lie down and what happens. Also that the police will come afterwards,” she describes the consultation with “Exit”. “You feel like you’ve been run over by a truck when a conversation like this is over.” All this is not easy. But the gratitude that her husband does not have to suffer endlessly would prevail for her.
Around 80 percent of the Swiss for euthanasia
Assisted suicide has been permitted in Switzerland since 1942 and is fairly uncontroversial. Referendums and surveys have repeatedly shown that around 80 percent of Swiss people support this possibility of self-determined dying. Even if the vast majority do not use it, it is probably a reassurance for many people.