A new Lifeway Research study reveals that a slim majority of Americans believe it is morally acceptable for terminally ill individuals to request physician-assisted suicide, while more believe physicians should be allowed to help patients who want to end their lives.
The study, titled "American Views on Assisted Suicide," found that 51% of respondents consider it morally acceptable for someone with a painful terminal disease to seek a physician’s assistance in ending their life. Slightly more, 55%, believe physicians should be legally permitted to assist patients who request help in ending their lives.
However, the support is not robust, according to the study: only 1 in 5 Americans said they “strongly agree” that it is morally acceptable for patients to ask for help to end their lives, while 30% say they “somewhat agree.”
A slightly higher number of Americans surveyed, one in four, say doctors should be allowed to help patients to end their lives.
The study also found that 32% found physician-assisted suicide morally unacceptable, with 17% saying they are unsure.
Regionally, support varies, with urban and coastal areas showing higher approval (up to 60% in some places) compared with rural or Southern states, where opposition often aligns with faith-based values, according to Lifeway. The Lifeway study, conducted via online panels, sampled 1,200 adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, an evangelical Protestant research firm, noted: “Half of Americans seek their own comfort and their own way even in their death, but that doesn’t mean they don’t think twice about the morality of physician-assisted suicide.”
CNA also spoke about the survey’s results with Jessica Rodgers, coalitions director at the Patients’ Rights Action Fund, a nonsectarian, nonpartisan group whose purpose is “to abolish assisted suicide laws.” The organization calls such laws “inherently discriminatory, impossible to safely regulate, and put the most vulnerable members of society at risk of deadly harm.”
Waning support, growing opposition
Rodgers told CNA these poll numbers actually show a decrease in public support.
“I certainly don’t see momentum on their side,” she said.
Indeed, a Lifeway Research study in 2016 found that 67% of those surveyed said the practice was morally acceptable, while 33% disagreed.
Rodgers said that as people learn more about how dangerous the policies surrounding legalizing assisted suicide are, they tend to oppose the practice, and “opposition cuts across the political spectrum.”
In New York, where the state Legislature recently passed a bill legalizing the practice, Gov. Kathy Hochul has yet to sign the legislation into law.
“She hears daily from diverse advocates from across the political spectrum asking her to veto,” Rodgers said. “In fact, some of the most passionate opposition to the bill has been Democratic leadership.”
“I see people all over the spectrum who agree on nothing else,” she said.
Disability advocates, health care personnel, and members of multiple religious groups have united in their opposition to the laws, saying legalizing assisted suicide is bad for their communities and bad for patients.
‘Dying in pain or in peace’ is a false choice
“Proponents often frame it falsely as “Do you want to die in pain or do you want a peaceful death?’” according to Rodgers, who said the practice actually targets people with disabilities.
“It puts our vulnerable neighbors at risk, and as people learn more about it, they tend to oppose it,” she said, citing that physician-assisted suicide is now the fifth-leading cause of death in Canada.
Since Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide through the Death with Dignity Act in 1997, by 2025, 11 states and Washington, D.C., now permit the practice. Most legislation requires terminal diagnoses with six months or less to live, mental competency, and multiple doctor approvals.
Physician-assisted suicide is different from euthanasia, which is the direct killing of a patient by a medical professional.
Voluntary euthanasia is legal in a limited number of countries including Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, and Portugal. In Belgium and the Netherlands, minors can be euthanized if they request it.
Where does the Church stand on assisted suicide?
The Catholic Church condemns both assisted suicide and euthanasia, instead encouraging palliative care, which means supporting patients with pain management and care as the end of their lives approaches. Additionally, the Church advocates for a “special respect” for anyone with a disability or serious health condition (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2276).
According to the catechism, “intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder” and “gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and the respect due to the living God, his Creator” (CCC, 2324).
Any action or lack of action that intentionally “causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator” (CCC, 2277).
Catholic teaching also states that patients and doctors are not required to do everything possible to avoid death, but if a life has reached its natural conclusion and medical intervention would not be beneficial, the decision to “forego extraordinary or disproportionate means” to keep a dying person alive is not euthanasia, as St. John Paul II explained in Evangelium Vitae.
