StatCloud

Source: GSS General Social Survey

Since 1977, over 35,000 Americans in total have been asked the following question:

When a person has a disease that cannot be cured, do you think doctors should be allowed by law to end the patient’s life by some painless means if the patient and his family request it?

The following chart visually describes the proportion of Americans who responded “Yes” to the question. The vertical bars represent the margin of error (the amount of random sampling error in the results) for each year’s responses. The exact values and the margins of error can be obtained by hovering over the individual points. Responses are stratified by sex.