More Than One Person Per Day Chose Death With Dignity in Oregon Last Year

The state’s pioneering program grew after lawmakers removed a residency requirement.

SUNRISE, SUNSET: The morning sky over Mount Hood. (Blake Benard)
By Nigel Jaquiss

A total of 367 people ended their lives through Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act in 2023, which marked a 21% jump from 2022.

In its annual report on the nation’s first Death with Dignity Act, the Oregon Health Authority noted the 2023 increase came after the state agreed in a 2022 legal settlement to stop enforcing a residency requirement on people who wanted to end their lives, and after lawmakers passed House Bill 2279 in 2023, removing language referring to residency from statute.

Voters originally approved death with dignity in a 1994 ballot measure. After legal challenges and a 1997 ballot measure aimed at reversing the original vote failed, the law went into effect in 1998. That year, 16 people used it to end their lives.

Related: The True Story of How Oregonians Won the Bitter Battle for the Right to Die

Most of the people who took advantage of the law in 2023 were white (94%), aged 65 or older (82%), and male (56%). As in previous years, the leading reason people gave for electing to end their lives was cancer (66%).

Last year’s increase was the largest ever in absolute terms, but in percentage terms, the increase from 2019 to 2020—34%—was larger.

Assisted deaths by year.


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