Assisted suicide is not and black and white issue: It is just a white issue

The latest data from California confirms that assisted suicide is overwhelmingly a white issue.

In 2019 assisted suicide accounted for 0.22% of all deaths on non-Hispanic whites in California - three times the rate for Hispanics (0.07%) and Asians (0.08%) and a massive eleven times that for blacks (0.02%).

Similarly in 2018 in Oregon deaths of white non-Hispanics by assisted suicide (0.49%) were at more than three times the rate for all other Oregonians (0.16%) and in Washington State white non-Hispanics deaths by assisted suicide (0.49%) were at more than three and a half times (3.66 times) the rate for all other Washingtonians (0.12%).

Dr James Downar, the first doctor to register to provide euthanasia in Ontario, has described the typical case of euthanasia as involving a "captain of industry, self-willed, no longer feeling in control so wants to control the time and manner of his death".

Tracey Bush, regional practice leader for the ominous sounding "End of Life Option Act Program" for the health care conglomerate, Kaiser Permanente in Southern California notes that 

Overall, "majority" race [i.e. non-Hispanic white] patients indicate they are pursuing medical aid in dying [i.e. assisted suicide] in order to have a sense of control at the end of their lives. These are patients who are accustomed to having control of their lives, including their healthcare.

Minority patients may not have such experiences, and these concepts may be foreign to our patients who have an alternate cultural experience in our community, our medical systems, and in our country.

Of course advocates for assisted suicide would like to change that but so far, in the United States at least, assisted suicide is a white issue.