Countering assertions to the contrary frequently made by euthanasia proponents, a recent survey of physicians demonstrates that laws against assisting suicide deter many physicians who otherwise would participate in euthanasia.
The study, published in the April 23, 1997, New England Journal of Medicine, showed that while 36% of the doctors would be willing to write lethal prescriptions if this were legal, only 11% are willing to do so now when it is against the law. Similarly, while 24% would be willing to give lethal injections if it were legal, only 7% are willing to do so now, when it is illegal.
Since entering practice, 18.3% of doctors have received a request for a lethal prescription, but only 3.3% have written one (i.e., 16% of those receiving the request). While 11.1% have received a request for a lethal injection, only 4.7% of all doctors have given one. Even among those who have written lethal prescriptions or given lethal injections, the practice is infrequent; in each category, the median number was two per physician. The highest numbers of euthanasia cases any one doctor reported participating in were 25 lethal prescriptions and 150 lethal injections.
Supporters of legalizing assisting suicide often claim that the practice is now common, but dangerous, and should be legalized to allow its execution in a safe, regulated manner. For example, in a March 12 National Press Club appearance, Faye Girsh, executive director of the Hemlock Society USA, said that laws against euthanasia are "pushing doctors into illegal activities and causing more terminally ill patients to seek out Jack Kevorkian. Until more states legalize physician-assisted suicide, compassionate doctors and lay people will continue to make a mockery of the law."
"Every violent death is a tragedy, and of course we must do all we can to reduce the numbers of illegal euthanasia deaths," Burke J. Balch, director of NRLC's Department of Medical Ethics, told NRL News. "Nevertheless, just as there will always be some illegal rapes, robberies, and other crimes, we know there will always be some assisted suicides even when they are illegal."
The survey results, he added, "show that, at a minimum, laws protecting against euthanasia prevent over two-thirds of these doctors willing to kill their patients from doing so, and almost certainly keep down the number of killings done even by doctors willing to act in spite of the law."
The study, conducted in 1996 by six experts from both sides of the euthanasia debate, surveyed over 1,900 physicians nationally in 10 specialties most likely to encounter requests for assistance in euthanasia.