Peter Baumann (psychiatrist)

Peter Baumann (born August 15, 1935 , † April 1, 2011 ) was a Swiss psychiatrist and euthanasia .

Life

Baumann passed the state examination in 1960 and received the title of specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy in 1968 . From 1971 to 2003 he practiced body-related psychotherapy ( gestalt therapy , primary therapy , bioenergetics , healing touch) in Zurich . He attracted attention through critical statements about military psychiatry in Switzerland. He is the founder of the Swiss Medical Association for Psycholytic Therapy , which studied the therapeutic use of LSD and the like with special permits .

Baumann died on April 1, 2011 at the age of 75 and was buried in Zurich-Witikon .

euthanasia

His discussion of the subject of suicide began early on, as his article in the Tages-Anzeiger of August 18, 1973 ( Is life voluntary? ) Shows.

Baumann's work as an euthanasia began in 1997 in the euthanasia organization Exit in the ethics committee and as a medical officer. Exit legally administers terminally ill patients on medical prescription with a lethal drug.

Baumann later went a step further by helping two mentally ill people who were willing to die - an obsessive-compulsive man and a severely depressed woman - whose dying care Exit had refused. The decisive factor for him was that, in his opinion, the two people were fully capable of judgment, no more therapy, but only wanted death. He assisted and instructed people to commit “over the counter” suicide: He provided them with medication and a sack filled with helium .

The Basel public prosecutor's office opened a first criminal investigation against Baumann in April 2001, alleging the willful killing of the man, and a second on the same night as the second patient died for inducement and aiding and abetting suicide . At the end of 2002 the Zürcher Ärztegesellschaft initiated proceedings against its member Baumann, whose actions could no longer be reconciled with the code of conduct. However, he anticipated his exclusion by submitting his resignation himself. With that he also left the Zurich Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy .

In 2003 a fingerprint trace was found on a corpse, which is believed to have come from Baumann, but the evidential value of which is doubtful. Baumann was arrested and taken into custody from February 18, 2003 to May 15, 2003. He denies any involvement or presence in this death. Upon release from pretrial detention, he had to make a promise not to assist suicide until the end of the trial.

On July 6, 2007, he was sentenced to three years in prison - two of which were suspended - by the Basel criminal court. On October 1, 2008, the Basel Court of Appeal changed the judgment of the first instance; it found him guilty of premeditated homicide and sentenced him to four years' imprisonment. The Swiss Federal Supreme Court rejected the complaint it had filed against it in a judgment of 11 June 2009. On February 3, 2010, he was pardoned by the Basel Grand Council with 69 against 7 votes .

A human rights complaint is still pending at the European Court of Human Rights against the judgment of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, which approved the conviction by the Basel courts, although the psychiatric expert had raised an objection of fear of partiality .

criticism

Baumann was accused of acting not out of pity, but only in his own interest: he misused the suicides as a weapon for his political goals. Apart from that, many mental illnesses such as depression are basically of a temporary nature and never "treated", the desire for suicide is often part of the clinical picture.

For Baumann, however, the freedom of action of every individual was paramount: the right of mentally ill patients to refuse to continue a life that they no longer experience as meaningful. If this right is denied to them in principle, there is a risk of incapacitation of all people who have expressed a desire to commit suicide and who have rejected proposed therapies.

In the case of the accompanied man, the coroner denied Baumann's assumed capacity to make judgments . Baumann, on the other hand, was of the opinion that the report had serious formal deficiencies and was based on inadequate documents: the criteria of judgment had neither been evaluated nor checked, and the court had ignored the will of the deceased as well as the specialist medical assessment of the man by him.

Works

He published his experiences as an euthanasia in a book that was published in June 2007:

• Suicide and assisted suicide. A new point of view. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2007, ISBN 978-3-8334-8215-1 .

literature

• The freedom to die: human autonomy in the end , by Peter Baumann, ed. by Jakob Weiss, Chronos-Verlag, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-0340-1246-1

Web links

• Association SuizidHilfe by Peter Baumann
• Why are you promoting over-the-counter suicide methods? ( Memento from August 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Interview with Peter Baumann in: exit.ch from 2008
• Death helper Peter Baumann pardoned , report in the Basler Zeitung from April 7, 2010

Individual evidence

1. ↑ JUDGMENT of the Appellate Court of the Canton of Basel-Stadt of October 1, 2008 ( Memento of the original of April 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Website of the Law Faculty of the University of Basel. Retrieved April 6, 2011. 
2. ↑ Obituary. In: Tages-Anzeiger . April 5, 2011, p. 27.
3. ↑ doctors index of FMH
4. ↑ Portrait in: Swiss Medical Association for Psycholytic Therapy.
5. ↑ Euthanasia pioneer Peter Baumann dead . in: Tages-Anzeiger of April 11, 2011, p. 18
6. ↑ Zurich: Peter Baumann died , report by the Catholic International Press Agency dated April 11, 2011
7. ↑ A struggle for life and death , article from the NZZ on Sunday January 25, 2004
8. ↑ Video on the euthanasia process (video can no longer be accessed due to copyright reasons) For example in the contribution to the Rundschau broadcast on June 27, 2007; other sources speak of nitrous oxide .
9. ^ Council minutes of February 3, 2010 ( Memento of the original of August 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 238 kB) 
10. ↑ Death helper Peter Baumann before the criminal court , article in the NZZ from June 25, 2007