GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: Swiss assisted suicide rates increased by 30% in 2015

viernes, 24 de noviembre de 2017

Swiss assisted suicide rates increased by 30% in 2015

Swiss assisted suicide rates increased by 30% in 2015

Bioedge

Swiss assisted suicide rates increased by 30% in 2015

by Xavier Symons | 17 Nov 2017 |

The rates of assisted suicide in Switzerland increased by 30% in 2015, bringing it close to eclipsing suicide as a cause of death.

965 Swiss residents (426 male and 539 female) died by assisted suicide in Switzerland in 2015, up from 742 deaths (320 male and 422 female) in 2014. Of the 965 deaths by assisted suicide, 822 were of individuals 65 years or older.

1071 swiss residents (792 men and 279 women) committed suicide in Switzerland in 2015, an increase of 43 deaths on 2014.

Importantly the statistics do not include those who have travelled from another country to end their life in Switzerland.

Felix Gutzwiller, emeritus professor of preventative medicine at the University of Zurich, said that the increase in deaths had to do with an ageing population, and with the negative social attitudes towards unassisted suicide. "It is the negative attitudes to suicide that drives up the number of assisted suicides," he told Tages-Anzeiger.

Several of our stories this week deal with end-of-life issues. For a bit of a change, how about an historical diversion?

“And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.” You might recognise this quote from the Bible. It is often used to illustrate the pain of infertility, which hurts no less 4,000 years later.

Jacob was a wandering pastoralist. But Turkish archaeologists announced this month that they had uncovered evidence of urban infertility in Kültepe, an Assyrian site in the centre of modern Turkey. It is a clay tablet with cuneiform script with a prenuptial agreement – also 4,000 years old. It may be the first pre-nup in recorded history.

If, after two years, the bride has still not borne a child, the tablet says, the wife will allow her husband to use a female slave as a surrogate mother to produce an heir. The slave would be freed after giving birth to a son.

Many ethical issues in the Reproductive Revolution have precedents, but it’s amazing to see that today’s surrogate mothers were anticipated by Assyrian slave girls four millennia ago.