More People Going to Switzerland for Assisted Suicide, Study Finds
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Version 0 of 1. Switzerland has long had a permissive law on assisted suicide, and a new study has found an increase in the number of people from other countries traveling to Switzerland to end their lives under the auspices of right-to-die organizations. The study, published in The Journal of Medical Ethics, looked at assisted suicides in Zurich, where Dignitas, the most prominent right-to-die organization, is based. The researchers found that 611 people from 31 countries had committed assisted suicide from 2008 to 2012. Since 2009, the number of those arriving from other countries for help with suicide has increased steadily, to 172 in 2012. Nearly half of all cases involved people with neurological disorders, like Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis, diagnoses that are generally not terminal. Nearly 60 percent of the 611 were women. People committing assisted suicide came largely from Germany, Britain and France. Twenty-one arrived from the United States: five in 2010, nine in 2011, and seven in 2012. |