Assisted Suicide : Experts Made a Warning
The International Association for Suicide Prevention has issued a warning against assisted suicide
The International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) has published its official position on assisted suicide; warning about the major risk of interference between the legislations governing assisted suicide and suicide prevention policies.
The IASP aims to benefit from collective expertise and knowledge in order to promote effective suicide prevention worldwide.
The international association considers that even when confronted with situations perceived as irremediable, therapeutic, social, psychological and palliative responses remain possible and must systematically be proposed. Death cannot, under any circumstances, constitute a substitute response to care, accompaniment or inadequate support.
The IASP calls on those States considering legalisation or the extension of assisted suicide and euthanasia to:
- Fully incorporate suicide prevention expertise in their decision-making processes;
- To guarantee universal access to high quality suicide prevention evaluations and interventions, independently from the eligibility for assistance in dying devices;
- To ensure equal treatment for any person expressing a wish to die, whilst never believing that a life can be considered to be “unworthy of being lived”.
The IASP insists on the need for cross training between the professionals of suicide prevention, palliative care, end-of-life care and accompaniment of those suffering from chronic or terminal disease or suffering from handicap.
Finally, the IASP is strongly opposed to access to assisted suicide and euthanasia for those whose suffering is linked exclusively to mental disorders, due to the current scientific impossibility of reliably predicting the evolution and prognosis of such conditions.
The objective of any law concerning the end of life should never undermine suicide prevention, nor routinely consider death as a response to human suffering.
The “Ultime liberté” (ultimate freedom) association has been sentenced for trafficking lethal substances
This positioning occurs whilst the criminal courts in Paris on 9th January 2026, prosecuted twelve militants belonging to the “Ultime liberté” association, which is calling for “the legalisation of assisted suicide”. They were sentenced for offences against the legislation governing the trafficking of illicit substances, by assisting tens of people, between 2018 and 2020, to import pentobarbital, which is a powerful barbiturate in order to kill themselves.
The Court was concerned about the “extremism” of some of the militants advocating an “unlimited freedom” to end one’s life. In the sentencing, it declared that the militants “claimed the right to decide whether or not to provide access to the lethal product, based solely on their personal experience and their life background. The militancy has collapsed into “amateurism” which can only be described as fatal.
Finally, the French Senate is due to examine the proposed bill on “Medical assistance in dying” by assisted suicide and euthanasia from 20th January 2025. Alliance VITA, as well as the suicide prevention associations and psychiatrists, have sounded alarm bells to denounce the dangers inherent in the law: suicide prevention can suffer no exceptions.
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