Several years ago, Canada began a program called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). Now it is beginning to reshape how Canadians are facing end-of-life situations. An article published in The Atlantic in August of 2025 reports that 5% of all deaths in 2024 happened through physician assisted suicide.

This is a topic that will garner increasing attention in the United States as medical aid in dying is already legally permissible in 13 states and Washington DC. The General Social Survey has been asking a four question battery about suicide (with various justifications) for decades now.

The Association of Religion Data Archives makes it easy to search the codebook for the GSS and pull out the relevant questions. They all start with the same preamble – Do you think a person has the right to end his or her own life if this person…There are four scenarios:

1. The person has an incurable disease 2. The person has gone bankrupt 3. The person has dishonored their family 4. The person is tired of living

It is clear that the American public has been much more open to the idea of suicide in the case of incurable disease compared to the other three situations. In 1977, 37% of the sample supported someone ending their own life if they had a disease that couldn’t be cured. That rose quickly through the next 15 years, crossing the majority support threshold by the late 1980s and rising to 60% in favor by the mid-1990s. It stayed there for a while but then rose again after 2010 and it’s now at an all time high: 69% in favor.

Christians who go to church weekly or more are more likely to oppose suicide in the case of incurable disease compared to those who attend less often. The other three scenarios have never got near the same levels of support in the general public. The share who favors a right to suicide for people who go bankrupt or dishonor their family has never been robust: 6-7% back in the 1970s and then creeping up very slowly over time to where it now stands, around 15%.

The question about suicide when a person “is tired of living and ready to die” gets a bit more support, though. It was 12% back in 1977 and that share has doubled in the last couple of decades. Now, a quarter of Americans favor an individual ending their own life if they just don’t want to live anymore.

The dominant view in Christian circles is that suicide is an affront to God’s gift of life and is strongly discouraged. Protestants tend to not see suicide as an “unforgivable sin” but still a tragedy in which humans try to usurp God’s ownership of life. Both the Quran and Hadith have explicit prohibitions for suicide in the Islamic faith.

The same is true for non-Orthodox Jews, but my experience as a Reform Rabbi in California, is that many Jews admire people who leave life early, because they are much less afraid of death and hell. These Jews do not think they are committing suicide as an “unforgivable sin” or a tragedy in which humans try to usurp God’s ownership of life. These Jews see it as a hastening gift for others.

The Hebrew Bible has a book of deep wisdom. Ecclesiastes 3:19 (NIV) states: “Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals.

Ecclesiastes 12:7 (NIV )states: “…and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it”. So many Jews see it as a hastening gift for others.

This is hasten-cide not suicide. Ecclesiastes 9:5 (NIV) states: “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their name is (after 1-2 centuries) forgotten”.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)