Assisted Suicide Has Increased 250% in Switzerland Since 2009 as Suicide Tourism Expands

International   |   Wesley Smith   |   Oct 20, 2016   |   11:33AM   |   Washington, DC

We are in the midst of an attempt to normalize suicide as a way of dying. Think, the celebration over Brittany Maynard’s death. Think media swooning over suicide parties. Think the increasing numbers of suicides/euthanasia deaths in locales where it is legal.

Switzerland exemplifies the trend. Assisted suicide rates are up 250% since 2009, and 26% in one year. From the Le News story:

In 2014, 742 people in Switzerland were helped to end their lives. This represents 1.2% of deaths for the year. 94% were over 55, and the vast majority were suffering from a serious terminal illness…

The most common reason behind assisted suicides was cancer, which accounted for 42% of the total. Cancer was followed by neurodegenerative (14%), cardiovascular (11%) and musculoskeletal (10%) diseases…

The number ending their lives without assistance in 2014 was stable at 1,028.

There is no difference between assisted and non assisted suicide. Suicide is suicide. Dead is dead.

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It is also worth noting that people fly to Switzerland and pay a lot of money to be made dead, a phenomenon known as “suicide tourism.

Bottom line, once you accept suicide as a proper response to illness, disability, and aging, the numbers will always rise the more medicalized killing is normalized.

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.

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