It has been argued that the legalisation of medical assistance in dying would decrease or, at least, not have an effect on suicide rates. David Albert Jones, Director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford, published a study in The Journal of Ethics in Mental Health showing the opposite. In Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium there have been very steep rises in suicide compared with those of neighboring non-EAS states. In Switzerland suicide rates have approximately doubled from 1998 to 2017. The data from Europe is not reassuring: The non-assisted suicide rates have not declined relative to comparable non-EAS countries, whereas there have been very large increases in suicide (inclusive of assisted suicide) and intentional self-initiated death, especially among women.
