New research shows that suicide rates amongst over-65s in Victoria, Australia, have been increasing- despite claims that legalising VAD would have the opposite effect.
A recent paper by the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health discusses a prominent argument used in the pro-Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) debate in Victoria, Australia: that legalising VAD would help eliminate up to 50 suicides a year. The paper finds that statistics suggest the opposite to be true.
VAD was legalised in Victoria in 2017, and is an umbrella term that covers both self-administration of lethal drugs (assisted suicide) and physician-administration of lethal drugs (euthanasia).
‘Unassisted suicides amongst the over-65s have increased from 102 in 2018 to 156 in 2022, showing a clear upward trend since VAD was implemented in 2019.‘
In the campaign to legalise VAD, it was presented as a solution to the tragic unassisted suicides of those with terminal illnesses- with claims that these occurred at a rate of ‘one a week.’ As such, it was suggested that VAD would save up to 50 lives a year.
This has not been the case. Instead, unassisted suicides amongst the over-65s have increased from 102 (2018) to 156 (2022), showing a clear upward trend since VAD was implemented in 2019. It is clear, then, that the introduction of VAD has not been successful in preventing the unassisted suicides of those with terminal illnesses.
Furthermore, rather than this being a general trend, the more-than-50% increase was limited to the over-65s (a group more directly affected by VAD) with suicides amongst the under-65s remaining at the 2018 level. It seems, then, that the introduction of VAD might even be having a negative impact on the group it primarily affects.
This evidence undermines the claim that VAD helps prevent unassisted suicide, as well as raising questions as to why legalising euthanasia has coincided with increased suicide rates amongst the age group most affected by it.