A new Lifeway Research study reports that 51% of respondents consider it morally acceptable for terminally ill individuals to request physician-assisted suicide. This number is down from 67% who found the practice morally acceptable in a 2016 study.
Jessica Rodgers, coalitions director of the Patients’ Rights Action Fund, calls assisted suicide laws “inherently discriminatory, impossible to safely regulate, and put the most vulnerable members of society at risk of deadly harm.” She said that opposition to legalizing assisted suicide “cuts across the political spectrum.”
Rodgers noted that some of the most passionate opposition to a recently passed New York bill legalizing assisted suicide has been from Democratic leadership. Gov. Kathy Hochul has yet to sign the legislation into law.
Currently, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia allow patients to take their own lives via a doctor’s prescription. Most legislation requires a terminal diagnosis with six months or less to live, mental competency, and multiple doctor approvals.
Currently, physician-assisted suicide is the fifth-leading cause of death in Canada. You can read more about the Catholic Church’s teaching on assisted suicide and euthanasia here.