Staff reporter
A recent peer-reviewed study has debunked claims that legalising euthanasia or assisted suicide (EAS) leads to fewer non-assisted suicides.
Director of the UK’s Anscombe Bioethics Centre David Jones said that their study, Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide, and Suicide Rates in Europe, has shown that current European data reveals a “consistent association” with increased suicide rates relative to countries without euthanasia or assisted suicide.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic newspaper, Prof. Jones said that the study’s main finding is that “in relation to suicide prevention, there’s no benefit or evidence of any benefits of introducing euthanasia or assisted suicide”.
“There’s an argument people have put forward that [legalising] euthanasia or assisted suicide could be beneficial for people who might otherwise attempt suicide, but that’s not what we actually found. In fact, we found sometimes the opposite, that suicide rates either they stay the same or sometimes they went up,” Prof. Jones said.
Read Jason Osborne’s full article on the study here.
