Since the dawn of history, many people have believed that human beings do not simply cease to exist upon their death. Numerous religions and cultures teach that the physical body may die and decompose, but that some element of the person goes on to what many call the "after-life." Between 1972 and 1982, when the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research asked the American public, �…
Americans say they are not afraid of death. In a 1999 survey conducted by the Los Angeles Times) 83 percent said they were not afraid to die. Fear of death seems to decline with advancing age. Among adults ages 18 to 44, 18 percent said they were afraid to die, while 79 percent were unafraid. Among respondents age 65 and over, only 7 percent reported a fear of death, while 90 percent said they wer…
National surveys of the adult population by the Alliance for Aging Research (AAR) have found that Americans would generally like to live longer. In 2001, 6 in 10 Americans (63 percent) said they would like to live to be 100 years old. Men (68 percent) and those aged 18 to 36 (69 percent) were more likely to want to live to be 100 years old. These findings are similar to AAR studies from 1991 and …
A 2002 National Opinion Research Center survey found that 58 percent of respondents approved of suicide if a person had an incurable disease, but only a small TABLE 11.1 Public opinion on whether a person has the right to end his or her life under specific circumstances, February 2002 minority approved of it if the person had gone bankrupt (8 percent), had dishonored his or her family (9 p…
Many advocates of physician-assisted suicide believe that people who are suffering from uncontrollable pain should be allowed to end their lives with a lethal dose of medication prescribed by their physician. Dr. Marcia FIGURE 11.6 Survey of teens on thoughts of suicide, 2004 Angell, for example, former executive editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, claims that "those with …
In 1994 Oregon became the first jurisdiction in the world to legalize physician-assisted suicide when that state passed its Death with Dignity Act. Under the act, Oregon law permits physician-assisted suicide for patients with less than six months to live. Patients must request physician assistance three times, receive a second opinion from another doctor, and wait 15 days to allow time to reconsi…
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