Right-to-Die Legislation: A Note on Factors Associated with Its Adoption

Abstract

Legislation allowing for some form of death prior to it naturally occurring presently exists in very few industrial democracies. This article explores what large-scale economic and social factors may be associated with the legality of right-do-die measures, namely, a nation's health care expenditures, the old-age dependency ratio, religious pluralism, and homicide and suicide rates. Using data from several sources, we find an association among these factors and right-to-die legislation. Four of the six countries with recent experience of legalized physician-aided death ranked in the top 50% of countries on our combined measure of the five factors under examination. Implications of this study and suggestions for future research of this timely issue are discussed.