New official figures from the Australian state of Victoria show a sharp rise in deaths under its voluntary assisted dying regime, prompting Right To Life UK to highlight what it describes as a 400 per cent increase in euthanasia cases over five years and to warn British legislators against legalising assisted suicide.
Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 took effect in June 2019, creating one of Australia’s first legal pathways for eligible terminally ill adults to access lethal medication. A government review of the Act’s operation, tabled in 2025, reported that 912 people chose to take the prescribed substance between 2019 and 2023, with annual deaths rising from 129 in the first year to 306 in the fourth. Earlier annual reports from the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board noted that deaths involving the voluntary assisted dying substance represented 0.65 per cent of all registered deaths in Victoria in 2022–23, up from around 0.3 per cent in the first year of operation.
The most recent Board report, covering July 2023 to June 2024, records 371 people who died via voluntary assisted dying in that 12‑month period, an increase of roughly 22 to 25 per cent on the previous year and equivalent to 0.84 per cent of all deaths in the state. The advocacy group Australian Care Alliance, analysing the same data, says 1,282 people had died under the Act by 30 June 2024, with 1,076 using assisted suicide and 206 receiving euthanasia by practitioner administration, and notes that the 371 deaths in 2023–24 were nearly three times the 131 recorded in the scheme’s first 12 months. Catholic news service CathNews has likewise reported that Victoria, which has the longest-running voluntary assisted dying regime in Australia, had recorded around 1,683 deaths overall by early 2026.
Drawing on these official statistics, Right To Life UK published a detailed commentary in October 2026 arguing that “euthanasia deaths in Victoria have risen by 400% in five years and they rose by nearly 60% in the last year alone,” citing the increase in physician-administered deaths in particular. Chief executive Alisdair Hungerford-Morgan said in the same statement that “people nearing the end of their lives deserve protection and the best possible care, not a pathway to suicide,” and warned that Victoria’s plans to further expand its law from next year should concern policymakers overseas. The organisation has also highlighted a separate incident reported by the Victorian government in which a bereaved person died after taking assisted suicide drugs originally prescribed for their partner, with Hungerford-Morgan commenting that “it is extraordinary to give that reassurance when drugs supplied through the system appear to have been used to end someone else’s life.”
Proponents of voluntary assisted dying in Victoria and across Australia point to the same data to argue that the system remains tightly regulated and relatively limited in scope compared with overall mortality. In a September 2024 response to the latest Board report, advocacy group Go Gentle Australia noted that 371 voluntary assisted dying deaths represented less than 1 per cent of all deaths in Victoria and called for more trained doctors to meet patient demand while maintaining safeguards. During a 2025 debate in the Victorian Legislative Council, a government representative told Parliament that the five-year review “confirmed that all the individuals who accessed the scheme were indeed eligible, affirming the strength of the safeguards currently in place,” and argued that the law was operating as intended.
The rising numbers have intensified scrutiny of how Victoria’s regime is evolving, especially as lawmakers consider recommendations from the five-year review and possible changes to eligibility criteria and procedural requirements. Groups such as the Australian Care Alliance continue to publish critical analyses warning of what they describe as a “slippery slope” in the loosening of safeguards, while Right To Life UK and other pro-life organisations are using Victoria’s experience to inform campaigns in the United Kingdom and elsewhere as national parliaments revisit assisted dying proposals. With further legislative debates expected in both Australia and the UK, Christian and pro-life advocates say they intend to keep pressing their case that expanding euthanasia and assisted suicide carries risks for vulnerable people, even as supporters of voluntary assisted dying argue that the Victorian data show a controlled and carefully monitored system.