Americans’ views on euthanasia have remained largely unchanged over the past decade, with most people believing that doctors should be legally allowed to end a patient’s life, a new Gallup poll show.
Slightly more than 7 in 10 Americans think doctors should, by law, be able to end a patient’s life “by some painless means” if the patient and family request it, according to the poll.
A slim majority of Americans support physician-assisted suicide, or when patients end their own lives with the help of a doctor.
Gallup found that 66 percent of Americans believe doctors should be “allowed by law to help a patient commit suicide” for terminally ill patients in severe pain who request it.
The debate over whether doctors should be able to actively help patients end their lives is long-standing, but a growing number of states are considering bills that would allow doctors to prescribe drugs that end life to terminally ill patients.
Although most Americans think doctors should be allowed to help a patient end their life, only about half of Americans think it is morally acceptable to do so.
Gallup found that 53% of Americans think physician-assisted suicide is morally acceptable and 40% think it is wrong.
Americans who identify as religious and attend religious services regularly are more likely to think the practice is morally wrong compared to adults who are not religious or who do not attend religious services.
The majority of Americans who attend a weekly religious service — 66 percent — think that physician-assisted suicide is wrong, while 48 percent of Americans who attend an almost weekly or monthly religious service think the same.
However, 28 percent of Americans who rarely or never attend a religious service think the practice is wrong.
Gallup measured approval of physician-assisted suicide among three religious groups: those with no religious affiliation, Protestants and Catholics.
The overwhelming majority of religiously unaffiliated Americans — 77 percent — think legal euthanasia is morally acceptable, while 46 percent of Protestants and 44 percent of Catholics think the same.
Democrats, at 69 percent, and college graduates, at 67 percent, are more likely to support physician-assisted suicide than Republicans and those without a college degree.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
