Public opinion on assisted suicide has shifted steadily
Five charts to start your day
For $10 a month, or $100 a year, you support a simple mission: spread great data visualisation wherever it comes from. You help fund the work of finding, sourcing and explaining the charts that deserve a wider audience. And you back a publication built on generosity, transparency and the belief that better understanding makes a better world.
CHART 1 • Public opinion on assisted suicide has shifted steadily
Views on assisted suicide tend to feel fixed, shaped by moral or religious beliefs. This chart shows that, over time, they have been changing.
In the early 2000s, more Americans said assisted suicide was morally wrong than morally acceptable. Over the following two decades that balance gradually reversed. Today, a clear majority of adults say it is morally acceptable, while the share who view it as morally wrong has fallen.
The shift did not happen all at once. Support dipped briefly around the early 2010s, then rose sharply through the middle of the decade before levelling off at a higher plateau. That pattern suggests a slow process of social normalisation rather than a reaction to any single event.
Several forces sit behind it. An ageing population, greater public discussion of end of life care, and high profile legal debates have all made the issue more visible and less abstract.
Source: Economist
One of the hardest things to spot in data is erosion. Not collapse, not crisis, just the slow wearing away of shared ground. When extremes strengthen and the centre weakens, institutions struggle long before they fail.
I have four more charts that explore this theme of concentration and polarisation in greater depth. They are for paid subscribers. If you want the full edition and the thinking behind it, consider joining.
