Haemmerli affair
The Haemmerli affair was an euthanasia affair in 1974 and 1975 at the Triemli City Hospital in Zurich .
The Swiss doctor Urs Peter Haemmerli , chief physician at the Triemli Hospital, approached his political superior, City Councilor Regula Pestalozzi , in December 1974 , saying that his hospital was overcrowded and that remedial action was needed. In this context, Haemmerli said that the terminally ill, if they were unconscious , would no longer be fed artificially, but only supplied with water. As a result, Regula Pestalozzi filed a criminal complaint . Haemmerli was temporarily suspended from his post and the Zurich public prosecutor's office was investigating willful homicide. The proceedings in which lawyer Walter Baechi , founder of the euthanasia organization Exit , defended Haemmerli, was discontinued due to a lack of evidence.
The case sparked heated debates throughout Switzerland.
consequences
Pestalozzi lost her mandate for the Cantonal Council due to the affair in the spring of 1975 , and in 1978 that for the City Council .
On September 25, 1977, the canton of Zurich voted on the popular initiative “Euthanasia on request for the terminally ill”, which required the submission of a professional initiative . This should encourage the federal legislation to be changed in such a way that the killing of a person at his own request remains unpunished under certain conditions ( active euthanasia ). The initiative was accepted with 203,148 votes in favor against 144,822 against, the federal assembly did not follow the professional initiative for legal reasons. Active euthanasia is still prohibited throughout Switzerland. Passive euthanasia (letting die) is not explicitly regulated in Swiss law and is therefore not considered a criminal offense. When applying them, particular attention is paid to the “Guidelines on euthanasia of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences” (SAMS), which allow treatment to be waived or discontinued if it is certain that the person concerned will never regain consciousness. The assisted suicide practiced by the euthanasia organizations Exit (founded in 1982) and Dignitas (1998) is derived from Article 15 of the Swiss Criminal Code (StGB), which only criminalizes them on the condition that they are “selfish Motives »occurs from the fact that it is allowed for reasons that are not selfish. Haemmerli's approach, which is widely recognized today, was passive euthanasia.
literature
- Opinions on the Haemmerli case. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . January 23, 1975, p. 41 (PDF; 1.6 MB).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Christoph Wehrli: The “Haemmerli Affair” - scandal about euthanasia. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . February 16, 2015, accessed November 3, 2015 .
- ↑ a b The pioneer of passive euthanasia is dead ( memento of November 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ). In: Zurich Oberland . August 25, 2012.
- ↑ Professional initiative of the Canton of Zurich Euthanasia for the terminally ill. In: Swiss Federal Archives, online official publications.
- ↑ Art. 15 Criminal Code (StGB) .