International pro-life organization Euthanasia Prevention Coalition highlighted in a Facebook Post on Friday that suicide cases have risen in Europe "when assisted suicide is legalized."
"In Europe, suicides rise after 'right-to-die' is legalized," Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) announced.
EPC International Chair Alex Schadenberg stressed that the incidents of "violent suicides" have increased globally, based on a statement by Anscombe Bioethics Centre Director David Albert Jones.
The EPC is a non-profit whose branch in the United States is "directly opposing" state bills and several court cases pushing to legalize or expand assisted suicide laws in America.
"Not a single country has experienced a subsequent reduction in its rates of violent suicides," Schadenberg said.
"Right-to-die campaigners often claim that legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia will result in a fall in the number of suicides. UK bioethicist David Albert Jones studied the record in European countries where these have been legal for a number of years. His finding were published earlier this month in the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health," he elaborated.
Jones was asked by MercatorNet regarding his research on "the overall suicide rate when euthanasia and assisted suicide are legalized." He said the research showed rates dramatically increased after assisted suicide was legalized.
"The key finding was that, in Europe, after introducing euthanasia or assisted suicide the total number of people taking their own life or having it ended on request rose significantly when compared to neighboring countries. At the same time there was no evidence of any reduction in unregulated non-assisted suicide when compared to neighboring countries. In some cases non-assisted suicide also increased," Jones said.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide was presented paradoxically to the Canadian Supreme Court as a way to "do away with" the need of the terminally ill or disabled for "intentional self-initiated death," MercatorNet raised. Asked if this matter has become "widely accepted," Jones responded no.
"It is not widely accepted among clinicians or researchers. The published evidence all points in the opposite direction: that legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide is followed by an increase in intentional self-initiated death. However, it is quite a popular argument among lobby groups and campaign organizations. They say that legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide would help prevent intentional self-initiated death," Jones said.
"They point to a problem of suicide among chronically and terminally ill people and claim that the problem would be 'greatly alleviated' by 'voluntary assisted dying.' They are right about the problem but wrong about the solution. There is no evidence that it helps. It is true that some people feel secure knowing that assisted suicide is available and this helps them to live. However, if you give people lethal drugs to end their lives some people will take the drugs and it should be no surprise that, overall, more people die," he explained.
Jones went on to underscore how unethical and wrong it is to force people to "take their own lives when voluntary assisted dying is not available." He said suicide should never be a "reasonable solution" for the "challenges of life," especially when people could be given "the right support."
Jones also touted the lie that voluntary assisted dying--euthanasia and assisted suicide--is an option to "non-assisted suicide" as a means to reduce the latter. He said the reality is totally different. non-assisted suicide "does not go down" as shown by countries where there are thousands of "assisted dying" cases.
He particularly cited the Netherlands that continues to register the highest number of cases in euthanasia for Europe. It is also one among the countries in Europe "where the rate of non-assisted suicide is rising." The same data could be seen in other countries like Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland.
"I found in every case that the number of self-initiated deaths went up after introducing euthanasia or assisted suicide. I found that in some countries non-assisted suicides had gone down and, in some countries, they had gone up, but compared to neighbors that had not introduced euthanasia or assisted suicide the rate of non-assisted suicide never went down. It stayed the same or increased," Jones concluded.
