The State’s Duty to Protect Human Life

Hungary safeguards human life with a legal prohibition on assisted suicide, criminalizing the facilitation of the practice both within and outside of the country. Diagnosed with ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative condition, Hungarian national Dániel Karsai has challenged this prohibition—taking his case to Europe’s top human rights court in an effort to force the government to allow someone to help end his life, thereby dismantling the country’s life-saving legal framework.

While we must have utmost compassion for Mr. Karsai and indeed anyone with a serious medical diagnosis, it is imperative that we not abandon our essential human rights protections. The European Court of Human Rights is charged with applying the European Convention on Human Rights, which contains no right to die, but robustly protects the right to life. Karsai has brought his case before the court, with an oral hearing in Strasbourg this week. 

For the court to condemn Hungary’s common sense—and transnationally common—protections for life would create a scenario in which the vulnerable could be pressured (or perhaps just feel pressure) to end their lives for fear of being a burden on relatives, care-givers, or the state. Nobody should feel compelled to die because they are a ‘burden.’ Surely any society that calls itself compassionate owes those who suffer a better answer than death at the hands of their doctor?

It is critical that the state protects the vulnerable from assisted suicide. Across ideological divides, suicide is universally understood to be a tragedy. Every human life is precious, and we go to great lengths to prevent people from taking their own lives. Logical consistency demands that the same approach apply to assisted suicide. The fact that a lethal drug is provided by a medical professional should in no way skew us away from the obvious truth that suicide always should be prevented, not validated under the law.

Under both international and European human rights law, Hungary is obligated to uphold the right to life, maintaining legal safeguards to protect everyone, and especially the vulnerable, from assisted suicide. ADF International, together with UK group Care not Killing, submitted this in its intervention to the court. The disabled, the sick, and the elderly need our compassionate love and support, and they have a right to have medical resources directed toward their care, not their killing. We all have inherent dignity—a fact which does not change when it comes to those who are disabled or ill. 

Forcing Hungary to legally endorse assisted suicide inevitably leads to a slippery slope with the number of cases increasing, the qualifying criteria being expanded, and abuses coming to light. This isn’t hyperbole; it is the documented outcome in countries that have gone down this path. Evidence in countries where the practice is legal demonstrates that a so-called right to die quickly morphs into a perceived duty to die. Only a handful of countries in the world have legalized euthanasia, and it has been rejected by legislators around the world. Governments are wise to avoid opening the door to a culture of death, in accordance with their international human rights obligations.

Wherever assisted suicide or euthanasia has been legalized, it has spiraled out of control. The ramifications are both endless and truly frightening, with countries that have legalized euthanasia now allowing the intentional killing of children, those who are physically healthy, and those who have not given their consent. Once a society allows intentional killing under the law, there is no logical stopping point. Not to mention that legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia result in human rights-violating coercion on medical professionals and others to end human life. 

The reality is that no ‘safeguards’ can ever be put in place to render intentional killing safe. The court recognized these dangers last year in the October 2022 ruling in Mortier v. Belgium, in which the applicant, Tom Mortier, was represented by ADF International. Mortier brought the case in response to the hasty euthanasia of his mother, Godelieva De Troyer, without his prior knowledge and for no reason other than a diagnosis of depression. The court found that Belgium violated the right to life in the circumstances surrounding her euthanasia due to an evident lack of independence on the part of the national commission charged with regulating the practice.

Following Karsai’s appeal for legalized assisted suicide, the court is expected to speed up its normal turn-around time, with a potential judgment as early as the start of 2024. Previously, the court consistently has upheld that there is no ‘right to die’ under the European Convention on Human Rights. 

For the very reason that it is impossible to distinguish between the person we talk down from the bridge and the person to whom the doctor gives lethal drugs, we must be clear that legalizing assisted suicide is a human rights abuse of the greatest, and most ideologically inconsistent, magnitude. The state has an obligation to protect the fundamental value of human life, and we cannot set in motion legal changes that undermine this obligation to the detriment of all of society. It is in the best interest of us all that we uphold the basic truth that human life merits the strongest legal protections, and no state can be forced to permit the intentional killing of its citizens.