print logo
RSS FEED

AMERICAN.COM

The Journal of the American Enterprise Institute

NUMBERS

Friday, June 1, 2007

A new weekly feature.

 

"Should doctors be allowed by law to assist the patient to commit suicide if the patient requests it?"

 

Suicide Chart

 

Today, Jack Kervorkian (a.k.a. "Dr. Death"), who helped more than 100 terminally ill people end their lives, leaves prison on parole. Opinions about his work are sharply divided, and often depend on how the questions are worded.

In the poll described above, which emphasizes severe pain and allowing doctors to assist patients, 56 percent supported "doctor-assisted" suicide. But i
n a recent AP/Ipsos poll, just 48 percent of respondents said it should be "legal for doctors to help terminally ill patients end their own lives by giving them a prescription for fatal drugs," while 44 percent said this should be illegal. (Source: The Gallup Organization, May 2007)

 

 

Nearly nine in ten American workers believe their jobs are secure.  One of the reasons we may hear so much these days about economic anxiety is that 50 percent of Americans say they know someone who has been laid off or lost a job in the in the last six months.

 

 

 


Blair's support for the Iraq War, and his generally warm relationship with President Bush, play far better here than they do at home in Britain. Even within his own party, the figures are grim: Fifty-seven percent of self-described Labourites were satisfied, but 40 percent of them were not.

 

 

Sources: For America, Gallup/USA Today, March 2007. For Britain, Market & Opinion Research International/Ipsos, April 2007.

 

Most Viewed Articles

Mediscare: Our Government-Administered Insurance Looks into the Abyss By Veronique de Rugy 03/18/2010
Just how bad is Medicare’s future? Ask its Trustees.
When to Doubt a Scientific ‘Consensus’ By Jay Richards 03/16/2010
Anyone who has studied the history of science knows that scientists are not immune to the ...
Reform through Reconciliation — Worse than Imagined By John E. Calfee 03/19/2010
As with the run-up to the Senate healthcare bill, we are again paying the cost of haste. Far too ...
Soul Music By Roger Scruton 02/27/2010
How we describe pop music proves that we find moral significance in music. How do we tell what ...
Due North: Canada’s Marvelous Mortgage and Banking System By Mark J. Perry 02/26/2010
What about the Canadian banking system allowed it to survive the recent worldwide slowdown without ...