Germany has been hit with the unsettling case of a palliative care doctor facing charges of murdering 15 of his patients using a cocktail of lethal drugs.
The 40-year-old doctor is accused of setting fire to the homes of some of his suspected victims to try and conceal his crimes. His victims allegedly include 12 women and three men, killed on dates between September 2021 and July 2024. Prosecutors, however, have warned that the toll of victims could rise.
The doctor has not admitted to the charges, according to prosecutors, who accuse him of administering an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients without their knowledge or consent.
According to the BBC: “The relaxant “paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes”, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Disturbingly, the ages of those whose deaths are being treated as suspicious range from just 25, right up to 94. He worked in several German states.
The BBC also reports: “The suspect is accused of killing two patients in a single day in July 2024 – a 75-year-old man at his home in central Berlin, and a 76-year-old woman in a neighbouring district “a few hours later.”
With all the reports around the shocking case, I’m surprised that greater parallels have not been drawn between this case, and with current efforts to legalise assisted suicide in the UK and in Ireland. We react in horror to the news that a doctor administered a lethal combination of drugs to kill end-of-life patients (he was a palliative care doctor) – when this is the very thing that a cohort of campaigners, often with strong media backing, want to legalise.
But we don’t call it ‘suicide’ – we don’t call it killing. Instead, we wrap it up in a neat little package, and name it ‘assisted dying.’ We call it the ultimate compassion. Don’t we see the irony?
When we are fine with turning those given the responsibility to protect and prolong life into the very ones who can take life, then we need to take a serious look at the doctors who we would be setting up with such unprecedented power.
Obviously, pro-euthanasia campaigners will respond by saying that these allegations are of murder: that the patients didn’t consent. But the inescapable truth is that, whether consent is given or not, a doctor is doing something no doctor should ever do – end someone’s life deliberately. That’s a Rubicon crossed that changes everything, in my opinion.
Just a couple of weeks ago, on the one night I watched BBC news, I was horrified to find a journalist, following the journey of an 80-year-old man to his death through lethal injection. Wayne Hawkins had invited Britain’s taxpayer funded national broadcaster to come along with him to his home in San Diego, California, and witness his final moments.
“The sun is shining on the bungalow where the 80-year-old lives in San Diego, California with his wife of more than five decades, Stella,” the journalist declared.
“I knock on the door and meet his children – Emily, 48, and Ashley, 44 – who have spent the last two weeks at their father’s side.
It is explained that Wayne sits in a reclining chair where he spends most of his days. He is terminally ill, and too weak to leave the house. This, of course, is the justification for assisted death.
“He has invited BBC News to witness his death under California’s assisted dying laws – if MPs in London vote to legalise the practice in England and Wales, it will allow some terminally ill people here to die in a similar way,” the report explains.
Whilst the news reader warned that the segment would contain “details and descriptions some readers may find disturbing,” it was much more unsettling than I could have imagined. Within half an hour of arriving at Wayne’s house, the BBC camera team watched him swallow three anti-nausea tablets, designed to minimise the risk of him vomiting the lethal medication he was to take.
The reporter takes one last photo of the family together, with the couple holding hands. It’s all very surreal and confusing as they smile for the camera. It’s as though they don’t quite seem to grasp the enormity of what they have planned. The euthanasia doctor arrives shortly after. He is not portrayed as some would see him – doctor death – but rather is painted as some kind of hero, and we are informed he runs his own end-of-life clinic like it’s a great and wonderful thing. He has determined, along with a second doctor, that Wayne is eligible for “aid in dying” – again, making it sound almost charitable that he is here to help kill him off – he has overseen 150 such assisted deaths. Meaning this poor man, really, is a number. He will be 151.
Then the viewer watches as a white powdery mixture of five drugs – sedatives and painkillers – are mixed in with cherry and pineapple juice by the doctor. We are told that it is to soften the bitter taste (as if that’s the biggest issue) and then the lethal cocktail is handed by the doctor to Wayne.
The unsuspecting British viewer, who may have just turned on the news to hear the headlines, then had to watch as the BBC explains that not even the doctor knows how long it will take Wayne to die after drinking the deadly mixture. The whole thing runs like a tutorial, or a bizarre, State-sponsored advertisement of sorts. He should be dead within 30 minutes to two hours of ingestion, most likely, but on one occasion, it took a full 17 hours, we learn.
Then it’s all over. We are shown him sleeping, and then the camera pans to the outside, with the birds chirping. To me, it feels like the furthest thing from a peaceful or happy death. It very much feels like this man has been robbed of something meaningful. That something precious has been taken away from his family. Time. The value of redemption in suffering, maybe. The meaningful conversations that were never had. The words that were never spoken and the comfort that was never given. The opportunity to make peace with life’s natural end.
“This isn’t just a story about one man’s death in California – it’s about what could become a reality here in England and Wales for those who qualify for an assisted death and choose to die this way,” the journalist says at the end of the report.
I just can’t fathom how we can paint euthanasia doctors as heroes, while at the same time expressing our horror a the appalling case in Germany. People are so blinded by the complex and messy concept of personal autonomy that they can’t see the parallels. Alarm bells should surely ring when we hear about the kinds of euthanasia providers who express what borders on glee. Multiple doctors describe administering these lethal injections and concoctions as their “best work” and “a privilege.” They get satisfaction out of ending life, like the notorious Dr Ellen Wiebe. What does that tell us about such individuals? Shouldn’t that concern us?
What about the heartbreaking cases of young people seeking assisted suicide because they are depressed or lonely? Is that real consent? Or the person with disability who can’t get care, and that makes them feel death is a better option? Is that real consent? Or the old person made to feel a burden – as more than 50% of those who died this way in Oregon did several years in a row.
Regarding the case of the German palliative care doctor, turned murderer, where are those who simply are that we need to “trust doctors”? After all, the argument that medical professionals should be trusted completely to make decisions about end of life care, including when it comes to euthanasia, is central to their argument. This case is just one of many that opens up a huge can of worms about the potential for the misuse of such a law. We’ve had accusations of euthanasia doctors smothering patients with pillows, too. Are we really ready to give doctors the power to end the lives of the most vulnerable?
As palliative care doctor Matthew Doré rightly pointed out: “German palliative care doctor charged with murder of 15 patients with lethal medications. Kim Leadbeater are you sure we should trust completely doctors with this judgement ? Are you sure legalising this won’t result in incorrect deaths?”
He’s right.
And who knows? Maybe this doctor will argue that he couldn’t bear to watch those in palliative care suffer, and that’s why he killed them? I mean, essentially, it’s the same argument that underlines the cause for assisted suicide, including among swathes of the public – who believe that assisted suicide is fine, ending life is fine, because the person is suffering in some way, even though palliative care is the answer there surely, not death.
Assisted suicide has become a disturbing growth sector in many countries. The capacity for humans to do evil knows no bounds. That’s why we should be very wary about opening up this particular Pandora’s box.
