There are a number of controversial subjects that are discussed in society today, but none may be more controversial than the practice of physician assisted suicide. It is a polarizing subject because people are compassionate on both sides of the equation. One one side, you have people who believe that people should have the right to end chronic pain or take their lives when a terminal illness is trying to strike them down. On the other hand, others believe that any time with a loved one is time that is well spent and that prematurely ending a life robs everyone of this extra time together.
Physician Assisted Suicide Statistics
1. The Netherlands became the first country to legalize the practice in 2001.
2. The percentage of deaths in the Netherlands that occur because of physician-assisted suicide: 2.3%
3. The average life expectancy rate for the Netherlands: 80.2. That’s the 15th highest in the world and more than 2 years more than the United States.
4. 99.8% of Dutch euthanization were performed in cases where suffering was described as “unbearable”.
5. The US Supreme Court ruled twice in 1997 that there is no constitutional precedent or right to assisted suicide.
6. In Oregon, where physician-assisted suicide is legal, the number of assisted suicide deaths were 77 in 2012, 71 in 2011, 65 in 2010 and 59 in 2009.
7. There has been a 21% increase in the number of prescriptions for assisted suicide in Oregon since 2009.
8. 3 years after the physician-assisted suicide law was enacted in Washington State, just 255 people had obtained a lethal prescription from a physician.
9. Of the cancer patients who were authorized a lethal prescription in Washington State, only 60% of them actually followed through with taking the lethal dose.
10. Dr. Jack Kevorkian spent eight years in prison for assisting in suicides before the procedure was legal.
11. In a 2006 Gallup poll, 69% of people stated that they supported the use of a painless method of suicide if the person taking the action had a fatal disease.
12. The number of states in the US that allow physician-assisted suicide: 4.
13. In the state of Vermont, the number of patients on record who have taken advantage of the Death with Dignity law: 1.
14. Pew Research found that 47% of Americans are in favor of passing physician assisted suicide laws for those that are terminally ill. 49% opposed it.
15. African-Americans, blacks, and Hispanics are twice as likely as whites to want their doctor to do everything possible to save their life.
16. 31% of U.S. adults surveyed believe that doctors and nurses should do whatever possible to save a patient’s life. This is double what it was in 1990.
17. 27% of Americans said that they had not given any thought as to their end of life decisions.
18. The number of Dutch people killed by medical euthanasia has more than doubled in the decade that it has been made officially legal.
19. 80% of people who request euthanasia die at home and are killed by doctors on the grounds that they are suffering unbearable pain.
20. 78% of the requests for euthanasia come from cancer patients internationally, which is twice the rate of US requests.
21. What makes Dutch laws about medical euthanasia controversial is that involuntary physician-assisted can occur. In the last year, 42 people with dementia and 13 people with severe psychiatric issues were medically killed.
22. The number of cases that Dutch medical review committees ruled that did not meet the legal requirements for involuntary euthanasia: 10.
23. All 50 states and the District of Columbia prohibit euthanasia under general homicide laws.
24. The number of countries outside of the US that explicitly allow euthanasia: 3.
25. The total percentage of medical practitioners that support a patient’s right to die: 54%.
26. 55% of terminally ill patients die in some form of pain.
27. In the United States, Democrats and Republicans statistically both support physician-assisted suicide at an equal right and not as a majority.
28. At the Dutch rate of physician-assisted suicide, there would be 75,000 US deaths every year taking place.
Global Physical Assisted Suicide
In some parts of the world, physician assisted suicide is considered common practice. Euthanasia isn’t actually a recent thought of humanity. The idea of dying with dignity is something that dates back to Biblical times. As early as the 5th century BC, the ruling civilizations of the time saw that active suicide for those who were suffering and it is believed that many doctors would help their patients die on their own terms if requested.
In the United States, the first public support of physician assisted suicide began in the 1870s. Samuel Williams not only talked about using morphine and other pain relieving drugs to help those who were terminally ill, but to help provide euthanasia when requested. As early as 1905, US states were introducing laws that would allow for physician assisted suicides to occur. The first national bill regarding euthanasia was introduced in 1937 and although it was never voted upon, it proves that there has always been an interest in the practice.
What stopped the interest in physician assisted suicide was World War II. With millions being involuntarily euthanized by the Nazi party, the issue became a moral discussion once again. Although the Holocaust often takes the lead in conversations about the war, and rightly so, it should also not be forgotten that the ruling party in Germany had a policy of euthanasia for those who were handicapped or suffering from mental health issues. This involuntary euthanasia practice even included children. Physician assisted suicide began to be seen as murder and it stayed that way through the days of Dr. Jack Kevorkian.
Today there is wide support for the right to die, although the word “suicide” tends to give the practice a certain stigma. What is most interesting about the statistics regarding physician-assisted suicide is that much of the information that is geared to lending an opposition to the practice are modified, inflated, or just downright false. It is widely reported that 10k people in the Netherlands wear “Do Not Euthanize Me” bracelets. Those don’t even exist.
Debate Over Physical Assisted Suicide
The reason why there is so much debate about this subject is that doctors are supposed to take an oath to do no harm. Even though in physician-assisted suicide, when they give someone a lethal prescription, they are not actually causing them to die. As has been shown in Washington State, even when the lethal prescription is given, it isn’t always taken.
Physician-assisted suicide is not quite the same as euthanasia. Euthanasia is the active practice of killing someone else because they do not want to do so on their own, but still want to die. It’s the practice of involuntary euthanasia that has many people questioning right to die laws. When a governing facility, even if it is two doctors who share the same opinion, can control life and death for those who cannot make the decision on their own, then the days of Nazi Germany are recalled and their practices.
It must be possible to allow someone to die with dignity and without pain if they so wish. Although governments may not consider dying an actual right, it is a person’s life we are talking about. If someone who is able-bodied can commit suicide without legal repercussions, then why is there such a stigma against people who are terminally ill from doing so? What makes the entire debate an ongoing mess is the fact that those who tend to oppose physician-assisted suicide are doing so based on information in the Remmelink Report, which examines data from 1991 when physician-assisted suicide was unregulated in the Netherlands.
This usually brings the discussion to the slippery slope. Once you begin to make certain exceptions to the rule, then the idea is that others will attempt to take advantage of these laws to fight for additional rights. If you allow physician-assisted suicide, then non-medical euthanasia becomes the next step. Then people are just randomly being killed because that have a dissenting political viewpoint. Then people are being euthanized because they happen to be wearing the color green on Sunday. Those theoretical issues are not the debate. Physician-assisted suicide is the debate. In that debate, the split is pretty much 50/50 for or against it from a global perspective.
That’s why looking at the actual numbers is so important. In the United States, where there are right to die laws that allow for physician-assisted suicide, there are fewer than 100 people per year who are taking advantage of these laws. In Oregon, this isn’t a short-term trend. This has happened over a 10 year period. It is vastly small minority that wants to die on their own terms. Preventing them from accomplishing this might make one half of the population feel better, but for those who are directly affected by a painful, terminal disease, the judgments just make them feel numb.