Take it or leave it.
Switzerland is asking a Christian organisation to choose between two options — comply with the law on assisted suicide or stay out of state control, which would mean no more subsidies.
The law on assisted suicide has been in existence in Switzerland since 1942. It recently sparked a new controversy when a Christian nursing home received a federal court order that it had to allow the assisted suicide of patients under its care if they express a wish to die, according to WRS, the Swiss radio in English.
The nursing home in the canton of Neuchatel has been contesting a cantonal law that allows assisted suicide in charitable institutions if a patient requests for it. The law came into effect more than a year ago. The nursing home contended that it could not possibly abide by the law since doing so would violate its religious beliefs and freedom of conscience.
However, the Federal Court in Lausanne dismissed the nursing home's view, saying the law must be complied with, which means the nursing home has to allow individuals in its facility to decide when and how they want to die.
The judges said the only way the nursing home could be excused from complying with the law is by giving up its charitable status. This would mean it would no longer receive state subsidies and therefore be outside state control, WRS said.
The nursing home belongs to The Salvation Army, an international Christian organisation whose mission is focused on preaching "the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in his name without discrimination."
The case in Switzerland may have repercussions in the United States, according to CBN News.
"Forcing medical people to breach their religious beliefs and be complicit in suicide/homicide is tyranny," Bioethics expert Wesley J. Smith wrote in National Review.
"Eventually that authoritarianism will come here, too if assisted suicide becomes normalised, just as the ACLU is suing Catholic hospitals to force them to violate the Church's moral teachings around issues such as contraception and sterilisation," he said. ACLU stands for American Civil Liberties Union, a national organisation that works daily in courts, legislatures and communities purportedly to defend individual rights and liberties.
"Freedom of religion is supposed to be one of the most important civil liberties, explicitly guaranteed in constitutions and human rights documents alike. But these express rights mean little to many secularists, who increasingly seem willing to trash religious liberty in the cause of creating guaranteed access to assisted suicide, euthanasia, and abortion," Smith said.
In the United States, five states have already legalised assisted suicide. They are California, Oregon, Vermont, Montana and Washington. The measure is being considered in 24 other states and Washington, D.C.
