Estonia Supreme Court Declares a "right" to suicide.

This article was published by National Review online on May 6, 2025

By Wesley J Smith

Five years ago, the highest court in Germany declared that committing suicide is a fundamental right — for everybody and for any reason — and that being assisted or assisting others in the act are ancillary rights associated with that liberty. In other words, death on demand. Now the Supreme Court of Estonia appears to have followed the same course.

Here’s the context: A man who provided a suicide machine to those who wanted to kill themselves was acquitted of any culpability. He was charged, among other crimes, with providing health services without a license. But the Court ruled — quite logically and correctly — that helping someone commit suicide is not health care. From the ERR News story:

The Supreme Court noted that Tammert’s actions did not serve any of the legally required purposes of providing healthcare services. Current law does not recognize as treatment any activity that intentionally harms health. Therefore, causing death cannot be considered the provision of a healthcare service.

I wish our courts understood that assisted suicide — despite its being called euphemistically “medical aid in dying” — isn’t health care. It is simply suicide, or helping someone commit suicide.

If the Estonian court had left it at that, it would be one thing. But it ruled that committing suicide is a right, as is assisting and being assisted in doing so:

The Supreme Court further emphasized that every competent individual has the right to end their life voluntarily. Criminal liability for assisting in such an act can only arise if the person is unable to carry it out themselves or lacks full understanding of the significance of their actions.

The court called on the Estonian parliament to issue regulations to guide non-medical suicide facilitation. In other words, once again: death on demand.

At least these rulings candidly cut through the toxic smoke so often generated by assisted-suicide advocates who claim that the death agenda is about terminal illness or, indeed, physical illness or disability at all.

Here is the debate we should be having.

• Should suicide be a right?
• If people want to be dead, should they have a right to be assisted in terminating their lives?
• Are there any limits to personal autonomy?

Bottom line: The high court rulings in Estonia and Germany demonstrate that the real goal — or, at least, the destination — of assisted suicide advocacy is a right to death by any competent person for any cause and assisted by anyone.

So, let’s stop pretending that any of this is about medicine or health care. That conceit merely corrupts the medical profession.

And let’s face the fact that, to an increasing degree, the West is no longer an anti-suicide culture.

Estonian man charged with renting out euthanasia device

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

ERR News reported on October 26 that the Estonian Southern District Prosecutor's Office charged Paul Tammert with renting out a euthanasia device for financial gain. According to the ERR News:

The Prosecutor's Office told ERR that: "According to the charge sheet, [Tammert] rented out the device at his own discretion at least three times to people, two of whom died as a result of using said device, while in the third case the process was left incomplete, since the device ran out of gas."

Kairi Kaldoja, lead prosecutor at the Southern District Prosecutor's Office, said that according to the indictment, Tammert offered people health status assessments, then permitted them to make use of a gas which can cause fatality when inhaled, i.e. he provided healthcare services for which he was not licensed.

Tammert appears to be another euthanasia rogue activist who believes in assisting a person's suicide. I am not sure of the laws in Estonia, but clearly Tammert was assisting the suicide of these people. ERR continued:

Kaldoja said: "Paul Tammert first assessed whether a person's mental acuity was adequate enough to be able to make their own decisions at the same time that their physical health had been sufficiently incurable to warrant ending their own life."

"Having completed an assessment, he rented out a device which allowed the person to utilize the lethal gas. According to the prosecutor's office, a doctor's qualification and a health service license are required both to assess people's health conditions and to use any gas which has an effect on those individuals' health, yet Paul Tammert lacks both of these," Kaldoja went on.

Even with such permission, Tammert would not legally have been able to act unilaterally in his actions.

The article concludes by stating that Tammert, if convicted, would face 3 years in jail.

Euthanasia was debated in Estonia in 2020.