Slovenia backtracks on assisted suicide: what arguments won the day in the referendum?

According to the initiators of the campaign behind this referendum against assisted suicide, this law posed a serious threat to the right to life of sick people, but also to the elderly and disabled. 

By collecting 46,000 signatures in favour of a referendum to repeal the law, the citizens' organisation ‘Movement for Children and the Family’ met the requirement of 40,000 signatures needed to hold such a referendum. 

The question put to Slovenian voters was clear: ‘Do you support the implementation of the law on assisted dying?’ In the vote on 23 November, the 20% turnout threshold was easily exceeded, with the referendum achieving a turnout of over 40% in this country of two million inhabitants. Fifty-three per cent of voters opposed the assisted suicide law, while 47 per cent voted in favour of it. The outcome of the referendum means that the law in question has been repealed and that the Slovenian Parliament cannot pass a similar bill within the year. 

The possibility of a new assisted suicide law being passed after this period cannot therefore be ruled out. Slovenian public opinion on the subject seems to be shifting: the first referendum on the issue, held in 2024, resulted in a narrow majority of voters in favour of assisted suicide. While polls a few weeks before the vote still predicted majority support for the law, the campaign led by Aleš Primc and his citizens' movement swayed public opinion on the issue. 

Was this a victory for ‘fake news’ or awareness of the impact of assisted suicide? 

Should we see this, as several politicians from the ruling majority pointed out after the vote, as a victory for fake news, or rather awareness by Slovenian voters of certain issues that had previously been overlooked in this debate? 

Among the arguments put forward during the campaign, it seems in any case that the insistence on giving priority to improving the healthcare system and developing palliative care before any law on assisted suicide was heard. In addition, emphasis was placed on the incompatibility of the text with Article 17 of the Slovenian Constitution, which proclaims the inviolability of human life. 

Similarly, the fear that the safeguards provided for in the initial version of the law would prove insufficient also played a role in the choice of many voters. This can be seen as a genuine consideration of the feedback from countries that have legalised euthanasia or assisted suicide: the highly subjective nature of the conditions for access to this practice, combined with the broad interpretation of these conditions by doctors and supervisory bodies, has led to a gradual expansion – often without any change in the law – of the cases eligible for programmed death, including cases that were unthinkable at the time the law was passed. 

Whatever happens – including the tabling of a new bill within twelve months – the significance of the November 2025 referendum cannot be underestimated: the repeal of a law authorising programmed death by direct popular vote is an unprecedented and important event. This calls into question the dynamics of legalisation – and even extension, in countries that have already legalised it (Austria, Benelux, Switzerland and Spain) – of euthanasia or assisted suicide across European countries, often presented as inevitable.