Our Philosophy
The Peaceful Pill Foundation was established with two aims.
- To help people in countries such as the Netherlands where euthanasia laws exist but where the criteria is so restrictive that the law excludes many categories of people including those:
- who feel they have completed life but who are not ill or suffering
- whose life situation falls outside definitions of illness and suffering
- who do not want to have to explain to doctors the reasons behind their wish to die
- who feel it is their fundamental right to control their end of life, irrespective of what doctors say
- To help people who live in countries (or states within countries) where no assisted dying laws exist with information about their assisted dying options in Switzerland.
Why Switzerland?
Switzerland is unique among countries because it has not criminalised assisted suicide.
The legality of the Swiss model of assisted dying is based upon the motivations/ intentions of those who provide the assistance. If those motivations are ultruistic in intent, then assisting a suicide is legal.
The only two other conditions mandated under Swiss law are that the person receiving the assistance must:
- have mental capacity
- do the action that causes the death themselves (in German ‘tatterschaft’)
