Washington State’s Death With Dignity Act: 2011 Annual Report.

Official report on the implementation of physician-assisted suicide in the US state of Washington in 2011

Washington’s Death with Dignity Act (DWDA), enacted in 2008, permits doctors to supply lethal drugs to patients who are terminally ill and mentally competent and who request them for purposes of suicide. Washington and neighbouring Oregon are the only two States in the USA to have passed laws of this nature.

We provide here the official report on the operation of Washington’s DWDA during 2011.

The report reveals a 37 per cent increase in the incidence of physician-assisted suicide in Washington State between 2010 and 2011 and a 94 per cent increase over the number of deaths from this cause in 2009, the first year of the WDDA’s operation.  Overall, the trends revealed in the report are similar to those which have been seen in the official reports on Oregon’s legislation.

LDW-Research-Washington-2011

Download pdf