The head of the German Medical Association has strongly condemned plans by a retired urologist to help a terminally ill and suffering person to commit suicide to test the law in Germany. Jörg-Dietrich Hoppe warns that he would notify the legal authorities and ask for a prosecution if any such move took place.

In a 14 January newspaper interview Professor Hoppe said that his association does not want “medical doctor assisted suicide to become a medical treatment, because it is not compatible with our medical ethics and because patients would be deeply unsettled” (www.rp-online.de/public/article/aktuelles/wirtschaft/news/521016).

Professor Hoppe’s comments came after reports that Uwe-Christian Arnold, a retired urologist in Berlin who also co-chairs Dignitate-Deutschland, the German branch of the Swiss …