Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide, and Suicide Rates in Europe (Journal of Ethics in Mental Health)

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Recently, the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health (JEMH) published an article by the Anscombe Centre’s Director, David Albert Jones, which shows, contrary to some claims that introducing euthanasia and assisted suicide (EAS) would reduce suicides, that there is no evidence that this is the case, but that European data shows that in countries that have introduced voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide into law and medical practice:

• No reduction exists in non-assisted suicide relative to the most similar neighbouring non-EAS country;

• EAS is followed by considerable increases in suicide (inclusive of assisted suicide and euthanasia);

• In some EAS countries, there is a relative and/or an absolute increase in non-assisted suicide;

• Data from both Europe and from the U.S. indicate that women have been placed most at risk of avoidable premature death by EAS.

This evidence suggests that so far from the introduction of EAS reducing suicides, it is actually associated with greater incidence of premature death (particularly amongst women), raising raise serious and concerning questions about the effect of assisted suicide and euthanasia on society’s commitment to and strategy for suicide prevention.

See our full Press Release about this important new contribution to the debate surrounding EAS on our website here.

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Staff are grateful to all those who sustained the Centre in the past by their prayers and the generous financial support from trusts, organisations, communities and especially from individual donors, including the core funding that came through the Day for Life fund and so from the generosity of many thousands of parishioners. We would finally like to acknowledge the support the Centre has received from the Catholic community in Ireland, especially during the pandemic when second collections were not possible.

We would like to emphasise that, though the Centre is now closed, these donations have not been wasted but have helped educate and support generations of conscientious healthcare professionals, clerics, and lay people over almost 50 years. This support has also helped prevent repeated attempts to legalise euthanasia or assisted suicide in Britain and Ireland from 1993 till the end of the Centre’s work on 31 July 2025.