A record number of assisted suicides were recorded in the US state of Oregon last year. Almost half (46%) of the people who died via assisted suicide there in 2022 reported they felt they were a “burden”. Some could not even pay their medical bills.
Data released by the Oregon Health Authority this month records that 278 people died via assisted suicide in 2022, up from 238 deaths in 2021.
In 2022, a total of 431 people were granted assisted suicide, though not all of them went through with it.
In the last ten years, the number of assisted suicides in Oregon has tripled.
Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act (DWDA) was passed in 1997. Since then, 2,454 people have been killed via assisted suicide. DWDA parameters require that a candidate must have a terminal illness and have less than six months to live.
The three top reasons given by people seeking assisted suicide did not include pain but the increasing inability to participate in life activities (89%), loss of autonomy (86%), and loss of dignity (62%).
46% of people who died via assisted suicide also cited being a “burden on family, friends/caregivers” as a reason for their decision; and 6% cited the “financial implications of treatment” as an end-of-life concern.
Lois Anderson, the executive director of Oregon Right to Life, has even claimed that doctors are granting assisted suicide to patients they have known for just a few days.
“The physicians providing these deadly prescriptions hardly know their patients and are often abandoning them in the last moments of their lives”, Anderson said. “That’s not care. That’s churning people through the ‘Death with Dignity’ machine.”
Vulnerable people let down by “dangerous policy”
SPUC’s Michael Robinson, Executive Director (Public Affairs and Legal Services), said: “These sobering statistics reveal how many vulnerable people have been failed in Oregon by an irresponsible and dangerous policy. Death leads to more death, as we have seen in Canada, where over 10,000 people ‘chose’ assisted suicide in one year.
“But as Oregon shows, many such individuals were made to feel they were a burden. Some could not even afford their medical treatment. Their consequent decision to choose death was not a choice at all but a desperate conclusion forced on them by governments, society and even, it has been suggested, some doctors.
“Increasingly across the globe, governments are turning to assisted suicide as a solution to the problem of old age, disability, mental illness and even poverty. The devastating result of this trend is becoming more obvious every day.
“We must join the thousands of caregivers and good doctors around the world in saying no to assisted suicide in the UK, which is at this present time threatened by the same fatal policy that has forced so many vulnerable people into an early grave.
“Please consider signing our petition on behalf of such vulnerable people in the UK (see below).”
Over 10,000 killed by assisted suicide in Canada in 2021
Canada’s “medical assistance in dying” (MAiD) programme has caused alarm around the world as deaths from the scheme have risen exponentially in recent years, killing over 10,000 people in 2021 alone.
Jordan Peterson, the world-famous psychologist and social commentator, recently commented on the dire situation in his native Canada. “I don’t trust the people who can’t give you a passport in two weeks to decide whether or not grandma gets to live”, said Dr Peterson.
In one “shocking” example, a woman aged just 31 was conditionally approved for assisted suicide after failing to secure suitable accommodation because of “abject poverty”.
SPUC has called on the UK Government to reject any attempt to impose assisted suicide here. Scotland is currently considering such legislation, while a parliamentary inquiry in Westminster is also set to explore such a possibility this year.
Sign SPUC's petition against assisted suicide
The examples of Oregon and Canada show how assisted suicide is inherently unsafe, unpredictable and unethical. We cannot allow this to happen in the UK.
Please consider signing our online petition, “Reject Any Move to Legalise Assisted Suicide”, by clicking the link here.
We must send a strong message to our political leaders that assisted suicide is a dangerous and unethical practice that must never be legalised in any part of the UK. Please sign the petition now.