Two men have filed a legal bid to prevent the Swiss assisted suicide association Exit from helping their older brother to kill himself, the group said on Tuesday.
Two thirds of the over 50s in German-speaking Switzerland have considered resorting to euthanasia to end their lives when the time comes, according to a survey.
Exit, the Swiss organization that helps people to end their own lives, has asked local authorities for permission to change its Basel office into a facility for assisted suicide. If agreed, the building would become the second such facility in Switzerland, after Dignitas.
A total of 172 "suicide tourists" travelled to Switzerland in 2012 – double the 2009 number – to die with medical assistance, a practice prohibited in many countries, a study said on Thursday.
Proposals to tighten rules on assisted suicide in Switzerland - including a possible ban on suicide tourism - have been defeated by the country's lawmakers.
<p>Groups supporting the right to hasten dying will meet in Zurich this week for a global conference on assisted suicide, reigniting the debate on dignified death.</p>
<p>The people of the canton of Vaud will vote in June on whether to require nursing homes and hospitals to accept assisted suicide on their premises.</p>
<p>Three hundred Swiss residents died in 2009 by assisted suicide, according to the first such official data published by the Swiss Federal Statistics Office on Tuesday.</p>
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<p>Voters in the Swiss region of Zurich, which has become known as a hub for "death tourism", voted on Sunday against plans to restrict assisted suicide to local residents.</p>
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