Patient advocates are appalled: The Federal Court of Justice acquits a woman who injected her bedridden husband with a fatal overdose of insulin at his request. The court saw a “uniform life-ending act” here, which the man alone had determined.
A woman from Saxony-Anhalt who helped her seriously ill husband die with insulin injections has not made herself a criminal offence. According to the sixth criminal division of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Leipzig, it was not her but her husband who controlled the events leading to death. He initially took tablets on his own that were supposed to kill him – the insulin served primarily “to ensure death”.
The Federal Court of Justice assessed the event as a “uniform life-ending act, the execution of which alone” was determined by the man. His wife, a former nurse, injected him with the insulin because it was difficult for him due to his illness-related impairments.
The man had suffered from various illnesses and great pains for many years and often expressed the wish to die. On the day of his death, he first took all the medicines available in the house and then asked his wife to inject him with all the insulin she had, which she did. He died from low blood sugar as a result of the high dose of insulin.
The tablets taken were also likely to kill him, but only at a later point in time, the BGH explained. It was “ultimately due to coincidence that the insulin caused his death, while the drugs only developed their deadly effect at a later point in time”.
The Stendal district court had sentenced the woman to a suspended sentence of one year for killing on demand. On the other hand, she appealed to the BGH and was successful. The BGH ruled that this was merely assisted suicide, which was not punishable.
The German Foundation for Patient Protection criticized the decision as breaking the dam for active euthanasia. “Surprisingly, the BGH assumed that a person capable of consenting and acting could not implement their will themselves,” explained board member Eugen Brysch. This is an endorsement of someone else’s killing.
