Assisted suicide was legalized in Victoria, Australia in 2019, with the promise that legalized physician-assisted death would prevent fifty suicides a year, said Hon. Damien Tudehope in a speech before the Victorian parliament. However, in the last four years, Victoria has seen an increase in overall suicides.
“[T]here were 62 more suicides in Victoria in 2022 than in 2017, when this claim was made,” said Tudehope. “The suicide rate among those aged over 65 years increased in Victoria between 2019 and 2022 by 42 percent — five times the increase in New South Wales.”
Data collected from Victoria reveals that there were 756 suicides in the state in 2022, an increase of nine percent from 2021. It is the highest number of suicides in Victoria since the coroner’s court began collecting suicide data in 2000. There was a 21% increase in suicide among people aged 45 to 54, an eight percent (8%) increase for males, and a 12% increase for females.
The Victorian state coroner, John Cain, said it was “troubling to see an increase in suicides emerge in the last few months of 2022.”
The trend could be a national occurrence according to some reports. Suicide Prevention Australia revealed that 3,144 Australians died by suicide in 2021, compared to 3,139 in 2020. With New South Wales poised to begin allowing physician-assisted death in the fall, through the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2022, there are concerns that the number of suicides there will increase as well. In fact, they already have been. New South Wales data shows 885 suspected or confirmed deaths by suicide reported between January 1 and November 30, 2022, compared to 818 over the same time frame in 2021.
“The misnamed Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2022 will come into effect on 28 November 2023,” said Tudehope. “NSW Health is built preparing for this State-sanctioned killing by setting up pharmacy services to supply deadly drugs and a ‘care navigator service’ to connect people with medical practitioners willing to end their lives. Expressions of interest for the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board have closed and appointments are expected to be made shortly. The members of this board are being given the ultimate power over the lives of vulnerable people.”
Tudehope believes it “is clear from the Victoria data that State-approved suicide for some evidently leads to more suicide overall.” He stated that if legalized assisted death has the same impact on New South Wales as it has on other Australian states, 2,175 people will die under the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act in the first year alone.
“Rather than offering death by lethal substance to vulnerable people, we should be saying, ‘We respect you, we value you, we love you and we will wrap around you all those services that see out your dying days in a proper and dignified manner,'” he said.
Research has shown that laws legalizing assisted suicide lead to increases in overall suicide rates. According to one study, “There is very strong evidence that the legalisation of assisted suicide is associated with a significant increase in total suicides. Further, the increase is observed most strongly for the over-64s and for women. To give an idea of the size of the effect, the event study estimates suggest assisted suicide laws increase total suicide rates by about 18% overall. For women, the estimated increase is 40%.”
