Oregon legalized assisted suicide in 1998. The number has grown ever since, reaching 367 last year, about 0.8% of all deaths. In the past decade the growth rate has been 18% per year.
Why the steady increase? The median age of assisted suicide was 75, and my guess is that it's an inevitable result of both rising life expectancies and, ironically, the ability of modern end-of-life care to keep people barely alive for longer and longer.
How about societal acceptance, as well as publicity and legal structures in accordance with that acceptance. For that matter, England obviously announced a change only yesterday. The chart doesn't show a steady increase at all, but rather something of a turning point relative to what was level.
How about, too, an aging boomer population starting to face seriously ungood life changes?
The curve looks much the same in neighboring WA. I figure acceptance plays a part, and it sure looks like ideology has a big role in it. Ninety percent of the 2022 deaths here were west of the Cascades, though only 60% of the population lives there (deaths were split 94% in '09, the first year); some context may explain that.
The Cascades are the dividing line of a massive Dem/Rep split, to the extent you hear talk of joining Idaho in eastern WA whenever there's a Dem president, and of forming Cascadia in western WA whenever there's a Republican. Western WA and especially Seattle metro are what's kept it a reliably blue state lately.
The hospitals *able* to do it are mostly west of the cascades, too. The split of hospitals is not even to population.
Ability to keep people barely alive...
The question there really is not can we, but should we.
My Mother passed about six weeks ago from heart failure an MRSA infection that she didn't take care of. She was already in end stage heart failure, so the inevitable was creeping up and the infection just happened to be nail in the coffin.
The hospital was great to deal with. They threw everything they had at the MRSA (which had moved into her blood) but after a few days of no improvement and she lapsed into unresponsiveness, they were ready to call it. We asked for a couple more days of massive antibiotics to make sure we were done, but there was no improvement.
They very conscientiously suggested moving her to Comfort Care and then to hospice. It was in the process of getting hospice set up when she passed quietly.
The option was there for us to do full life support, resuscitation, incubation, etc.
They were pretty clear that it would be to no avail and there was no road back given her age, condition, and the MRSA. We declined the full support and have no regrets. Whole thing start to finish was 1 week, she was pretty much gone by day 2.
Even if we'd chosen full life support it would not have helped with the MRSA, just dragged things out a few days longer.
Her brother argued with us and emphasized that he was "pro-life" and we should do everything possible. She was 82, in heart failure, unresponsive and not going to recover. Letting her go was the charitable and right thing to do, even though they might have kept her "alive" for longer.
What is alive? Heartbeat? Breathing? Conscious? Brain activity?
Condolences on the passing of your mother. I do think deciding on hospice care for someone in bad health, who does not have much of a chance of recovery, is a less morally complicated decision than assisted suicide. For the latter, someone (usually the doctor) has to take action to end a life, rather than just let nature take its course.
It sounds like you made the right decision, difficult as it was.
You have to take an action either way.
Sure, but the action, in the case of hospice care, is to take no action, other than comfort care. For assisted suicide, someone has to prescribe or administer the drug. Some of the doctors I know have expressed qualms about this. What if something goes wrong and the person is harmed in some way rather than dying peacefully? Then the doctor could be held responsible. I don't know how big the risk is, offhand, but it is an issue for doctors who take an oath to "first do no harm".
Crissa is right. it's an action either way. Deciding to discontinue treatment because the only possible result is prolonging the inevitable is an action.
Ending things early to avoid a horrible and awful end of life is an action.
We all have different tolerances for suffering. My Mom was suffering right up until she lost consciousness, but it was her choice. After that, it became my choice since she refused to complete an Advanced Directive.
We should all be allowed a choice.
I have no objection to hospice care. I know several people (including my own mother) who opted for that, and it was the right choice. That is different than assisted suicide. For more about the moral dilemmas, go here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/22/the-death-treatment?_sp=2270aad5-a19e-42ef-950e-bb3f2cbc7c78.1733095293552
It's a long article and somewhat dated, but still disturbing to read. One doctor quoted in the article says that assisted suicide is unnecessary, that palliative care is all that is needed.
It probably doesn't matter much to this graph - but the reasons for always adjusting multi year money comparisons to constant dollars apply to this sort of thing too.
What's the Oregon rate per 100,000 residents?
Points about the age breakdown, and about capacity for pointless medical intervention, still stand.
"Why the steady increase? ..."
According to the link, the residency requirement was dropped in 2023.
I thought I remembered residency had changed, but didn't look it up.
That's a change that enlarges the pool from which assisted suicides may come.
And, as Crissa notes, the population of Oregon grew, and the median age increased.
I doubt any other explanations, however 'just so', are needed.
The population of Oregon grew by a million over the intervening two decades, while the median age grew by over five years.
So yeah, more older people, basically, plus a little growth for people learning they could do it.
I just turned 89 and have been living with pains of one sort or another for 30 years. When I can't take the pain anymore it is time to better your exit.
At a certain age, if you wake up in the morning and nothing hurts, that means you're dead.😁
Lol