German court widens right of dying to end treatment

In a ruling that expands the right of dying people to refuse life-prolonging treatment, Germany's top court acquitted a lawyer of attempted-euthanasia charges on Friday, DPA reported.

Germany has very strict rules against allowing terminally-ill people to die, partly in response to the mass killing of disabled people under the Nazi regime. The ruling still does not permit "mercy killing."

The Federal High Court overturned the conviction and suspended a 9-month prison sentence on the lawyer, who specializes in medical law. He had advised a client by phone to sever a feeding tube to her nearly comatose mother's stomach to hasten her death.

The nursing home sent the mother to a hospital where doctors inserted a new tube. The mother, who had been in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), died two weeks later of heart failure.

Judges said the patient's wishes were paramount. A patient could also object to life-prolonging treatment taking place well before the final phase of death. This meant the acts of the lawyer, Wolfgang Putz, and the daughter, Elke Gloor, were legal.

Gloor, 55, testified her mother had once remarked she hoped to never be artificially kept alive "on tubes." The mother never regained consciousness after a brain haemorrhage in 2002 and the family decided in 2006 it was time to end life support.

In the city of Karlsruhe, judges said there was no difference between failing to conduct life-prolonging treatment and an active intervention, such as removing a tube. German federal prosecutors had earlier agreed with that view and recommended the acquittal.

The lawyer had been convicted in a regional court in the city of Fulda.

Gloor, who had earlier been acquitted on the grounds that she thought her action was legal, voiced relief that the lawyer had been cleared too. "To my mind, it was clear from the start that I did the right thing," she said.

Germany's main Christian denominations differed in their responses.

A national Lutheran spokesman said the ruling was correct, but the Conference of Catholic Bishops said the ruling muddied the issue. A spokesman said Catholic doctrine approved inaction to let a PVS patient die, but disapproved of positive action to hasten death.