Victoria, Australia has seen a 400% increase in cases of
euthanasia over a five-year period, as the region intends to
expand the law further from next year.
The most recent
annual
report for the year 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 shows
there were 140 cases of euthanasia during this time period,
compared
with only 28 cases for the same time period in
2020-21.
According to the annual report released
earlier this month, there was a 59.09% increase in instances
of euthanasia for the year 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026, when
there were 140 cases of euthanasia, compared with the previous
year, when there were 88.
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The report also reveals
that deaths by assisted suicide and euthanasia in 2025-26
accounted for 1.1%
of all deaths in Victoria, almost four times higher than the
first year of operation in 2019-20, when euthanasia and
assisted suicide deaths accounted for 0.3%
of all deaths in Victoria.
There were a total
of 512 deaths by euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2025-26,
an increase of 31.62% from the previous year, when there
were 389 such deaths.
Over the course of just a year,
the number of applicants for assisted suicide and euthanasia
who did not access palliative care increased from 118
in 2024-25 to 179
in 2025-26, an increase of over 50%.
Since 2019, when
the state began ending the lives of some of its own citizens
by assisting in their suicides and by euthanasia, to the end
of June this year, a total of 2,188
people have ended their lives by assisted suicide and
euthanasia in Victoria. The number of people who have ended
their lives in this way has increased by 153.47% in the five
years from the reporting year 2020-21 to the reporting year
2025-26.
Of the 512 deaths in 2025-26, 372
(72.66%) were instances of assisted suicide, where the
person who wishes to die ingests or otherwise takes the
lethal substance themselves, and 140 (27.34%) were instances
of euthanasia, where a medical practitioner administers the
lethal substance to the patient to end their
life.
Only three
applications in the year 2025-26 involved referral for
an additional assessment regarding decision-making capacity.
Since assisted suicide and euthanasia were made legal in
June 2019, there have only been 38 such
referrals.
Significant expansion of assisted suicide
and euthanasia law in Victoria to take place in
2027
In 2027, a significant expansion of the assisted
suicide and euthanasia law is set to take place in Victoria.
This change was agreed only six years after the law came
into effect in June 2019.
The raft of changes made by
the Government of Victoria, Australia, includes increasing
the prognosis limit for those who want to end their lives by
assisted suicide or euthanasia from six to 12 months and
ending the restriction on doctors raising the possibility of
assisted suicide or euthanasia with one of their patients
unprompted, according to reports.
Previously,
individuals had to have been given a prognosis
of death within six months in order to access state-assisted
suicide or euthanasia, unless they had been diagnosed with a
neurodegenerative disease, in which case their prognosis
could be extended to those with a life expectancy of 12
months. Now, the law has been changed
to double the eligible life expectancy to 12 months for all
conditions.
Doctors will also be allowed, for the
first time, to raise the topic of state-assisted suicide and
euthanasia unprompted with patients thought to be nearing
the end of their lives, as well as requiring health
practitioners who conscientiously object to assisted suicide
and euthanasia to provide information to
patients.
According to reports, the requirement for
individuals with a neurodegenerative condition to have a
third assessment before being able to end their lives by
assisted suicide or euthanasia has also been removed. The
time limit between the first and final access requests has
been decreased,
from nine days to only five days.
The eligibility
rules have also been changed to allow people who have lived
in Australia for only three years to end their lives by
assisted suicide or euthanasia, even if they are not
citizens or permanent residents of the
country.
Additionally, changes to the law have been
made to make it easier for medical practitioners to join the
programme to administer assisted suicide. The eligibility
rules for practitioners have been changed to make it easier
for them to get involved in the programme, while permits
have been simplified and a new administrative practitioner
role has been created.
According
to the new annual report on assisted suicide and euthanasia
in Victoria, the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board
“expects further growth in [assisted suicide and
euthanasia] applications following the legislative
change”.
Alisdair Hungerford-Morgan, Chief Executive
of Right To Life, a charity that opposes the introduction of
assisted suicide and euthanasia, and campaigns instead for
greater investment in palliative care,
said:
“Euthanasia deaths in Victoria have risen
by 400% in five years and they rose by nearly 60% in the
last year alone.”
“Sadly, as in other
jurisdictions, once assisted dying is made legal, often more
and more people have their lives ended every
year.”
“This will likely only get worse
once the law expands. The removal of safeguards and the
expansion of assisted suicide and euthanasia in Victoria,
Australia, is a very concerning development. It provides yet
another example of how the slippery slope of assisted
suicide so often becomes a reality, and that there is a
clear tendency towards reducing safeguards and widening the
eligibility criteria in places where assisted suicide has
been legalised.”
“The surging number of
deaths in Victoria shows why MPs in the UK were right to
reject assisted suicide this month. People nearing the end
of their lives deserve protection and the best possible
care, not a pathway to
suicide.”
