Voters Support Medical Aid in Dying, Think It Should Only Be Offered to Terminally Ill Patients
Medical aid in dying — sometimes called "physician-assisted suicide" — is a practice in which a doctor helps someone end their life peacefully with a prescription medication. The process has recently become common in Canada, now accounting for 1 in 20 Canadian deaths. It is currently legal in 11 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., for people with a terminal illness, and legislation legalizing the practice is being considered in New York.
In a new survey, Data for Progress finds that after reading a brief description of the practice, voters broadly support medical aid in dying, including 60% of Democrats, 65% of Independents, and 58% of Republicans.
However, while a majority of voters think medical aid in dying should be an option for someone with a terminal illness (65%), they largely do not think it should be allowed for someone with a severe disability (37%), someone with a severe mental illness (26%), someone with a severe illness that isn’t terminal (25%), or someone who simply wishes to end their life (22%).
Some countries, including Belgium and the Netherlands, have required doctors to exhaust all other treatment options before offering medical aid in dying.
The survey finds that a majority of voters agree with this approach. Voters across party lines — 53% of Democrats, 63% of Independents, and 55% of Republicans — think that “doctors should be required to wait before offering medical aid in dying to patients until all other options have been offered.”
Meanwhile, 17% of voters think that “doctors should be allowed to offer medical aid in dying to patients upfront, as part of their initial slate of treatment options,” and 21% believe that “doctors should not be allowed to offer medical aid in dying under any circumstances.”
These findings demonstrate that voters generally support the concept of medical aid in dying, but when presented with specific cases, they think it should only be accessible to patients with a terminal illness, and that doctors should not be allowed to offer it until all other options have been presented.
