City of Zurich will mandate assisted suicide option in every care home, including religious ones

[Stone]

City of Zurich will mandate assisted suicide option in every care home, including religious ones
Zurich officials support a policy requiring every hospital, care home to provide assisted suicide, 

overturning protections that allowed religious homes to refuse participation.



Elderly woman in hospital
Pressmaster/Shutterstock

Feb 4, 2026
(Euthanasia Prevention Coalition) — Swissinfo.ch reported on February 2 that the Swiss Canton of Zurich is in favour of requiring assisted suicide in all hospitals and retirement homes but not in psychiatric facilities and prisons.

The Swissinfo article reported:

The cantonal government is generally in favour of assisted suicide in all retirement and nursing homes. It has drawn up a corresponding counter-proposal to the initiative “Self-determination at the end of life in retirement and nursing homes too.” This would mean that all homes would have to tolerate assisted suicide in the future.

READ: Disabled Canadian man chooses euthanasia due to loneliness, ‘psychosocial suffering’

This proposal, which requires every care home to provide assisted suicide, does not extend to psychiatric facilities and prisons. The article further explains:

The popular initiative challenges a cantonal decision in October 2022 that not all care homes should allow assisted suicide on their premises, but only those with a service mandate from a municipality. This considers religious care homes, that often reject euthanasia.

This news article is essentially stating that the new policy ordering all retirement homes to provide assisted suicide only differs from the previous policy by the fact that it requires religious care homes to also permit assisted suicide.

What begins as an option for people who are seeking assisted suicide becomes an obligation to provide assisted suicide, even for people and groups who oppose killing.

Reprinted with permission from the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.