Disabled Veterans and Assisted Suicide: At Greater Risk

The Numbers

Veterans risk their lives and sacrifice the health of their bodies and minds to defend the United States. Few other occupations deserve more credit and support. Despite this, veterans have one of the highest risks of suicide.

The statistics are sobering. Veterans make up nearly a quarter of all the deaths by suicide in the United States.^[1] Their suicide rate is two times or nearly two times greater than that of the general population.^[2] 6,398 veterans died by suicide in 2023 (the latest year for which we have data), and although their overall suicide rate fluctuates it rose within the last year.^[3] The Department of Veterans Affairs lists many potential reasons veterans may commit suicide at higher rates, including but not limited to: documented relationship problems, financial losses, poor self-control and declines in physical ability.^[4] Many veterans who died from suicide, however, had something in common: a disability.

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), veterans had a range of disabilities which contributed to their deaths by suicide, including “sleep problems,” “pain issues,” mental health and substance use disorders, and traumatic brain injuries.^[5] Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is another common contributor to veteran suicide, with 31% of veterans developing it after returning from combat and 26.7% of those who died by suicide in 2023 having this disability.^[6] According to data from both the VA and reputable research, veterans are more likely to have mental health disabilities generally.^[7] In fact, most of the veterans who received care from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) in 2023 and died from a suicide had a disability.^[8]

The statistics tell the tale: veterans with disabilities have an extraordinarily high risk of suicide. However, they may also have a higher risk of assisted suicide. It is true that the VHA cannot use any of its funds to provide or pay for assisted suicide.^[1] However, no federal law prohibits veterans from using a state’s assisted suicide law to end their own lives.

Veterans with disabilities may be particularly likely to do so. In the National Council on Disability’s report on assisted suicide, they reference a trend in which veterans denied basic pain care, among other populations, are becoming more likely to commit suicide.^[2] It is not so much that funding for veterans pays for assisted suicide as it is that the refusal to provide care forces veterans to make difficult, unfair choices about whether to live a life in pain or not.

Furthermore, the NCD report explains that people become most likely to use assisted suicide when they are under significant financial or social pressure, when they view themselves as a burden on others, when they feel they have lost dignity, and when they have co-occurring mental health disabilities that exacerbate the risk.^[3] These factors are practically identical to those that increase the risk of ordinary, non-assisted suicide listed in VHA’s 2026 report.^[4] Therefore, although no data exists which would show how many veterans have used assisted suicide (and it is unlikely any data ever will due to the stringent data collection limitations imposed by assisted suicide laws),^[5] we can infer they likely are a high-risk population that needs the support of the disability rights community.

Internationally there have already been cases where veterans have been steered towards assisted suicide. Four to five veterans who sought help from Veterans Affairs Canada in 2022 were offered Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) instead, although Veterans Affairs Canada believed it was an isolated incident.^[6] However, up to potentially twenty veterans have been offered MAiD instead of support, making an isolated incident less likely (but still possible).^[7] Either way, Canada possesses one of the most robust assisted suicide programs. It is disturbing that anyone working for their government would suggest prematurely ending the lives of those who risked those lives for their country.

“The Numbers” Footnotes

^[1] Charles R. Hooper, Suicide Among Veterans, American Addiction Centers (Mar. 27, 2025), https://americanaddictioncenters.org/veterans/suicide-among-veterans.

^[2] U.S. Dep’t Veterans Affairs, 2025 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report Part 2: Report Findings 12 (Mar. 2026), available at https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/data-sheets/2025/2025_Annual_Report_Part_2_508.pdf (hereinafter “Veterans Affairs Findings”).

^[3] U.S. Dep’t Veterans Affairs, 2025 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report Part 1: Overview 2 (Mar. 2026), available at https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/docs/data-sheets/2025/2025_Annual_Report_Part_1_508.pdf (hereinafter “Veterans Affairs Overview”); Patricia Kime, Veteran Suicide Rate Slightly Increased, Latest Report Finds, https://www.moaa.org (Feb. 11, 2026), https://www.moaa.org/content/publications-and-media/news-articles/2026-news-articles/reads/veteran-suicide-rate-slightly-increased,-latest-report-finds/.

^[4] Veterans Affairs Overview at 3.

^[5] Veterans Affairs Overview at 3, 4.

^[6] Veterans Affairs Findings at 41; Stop Soldier Suicide, Veteran Suicide Statistics, https://stopsoldiersuicide.org/vet-stats (last visited Apr. 7, 2026).

^[7] Veterans Affairs Findings at 41, 42 (showing the prevalence of mental health and substance use diagnoses among recent VHA clients); Ranak B. Trivedi et. al., Prevalence, Comorbidity, and Prognosis of Mental Health Among US Veterans, 105 Am. J. Pub. Health 2564, 2565-68 (2015), available at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4638236/pdf/AJPH.2015.302836.pdf (finding that around a quarter of veterans studied had at least one mental health disability).

^[8] Veterans Affairs Findings at 41 (“Among annual cohorts of Recent Veteran VHA Users who died from suicide, VHA mental health or SUD diagnoses were documented in the year or prior calendar year for … 60.9% of suicide decedents in 2023”).

“The Consequences” Footnotes

^[1] 42 U.S. Code § 14402(a).

^[2] Nat’l Council Disability, The Dangers of Assisted Suicide Laws: Part of the Bioethics and Disability Series 49 (Oct. 9, 2019), available at https://www.ncd.gov/report/the-danger-of-assisted-suicide-laws/ (hereinafter “NCD Report”).

^[3] NCD Report at 24-28, 37.

^[4] See Veterans Affairs Overview at 3, 4 (listing “documented pain issues,” “increased health problems,” “declines in physical ability,” “feeling hopeless,” and “financial loss,” and describing  mental health disabilities as conferring increased risk of suicide).

^[5] NCD Report at 33-37.

^[6] Murray Brewster, RCMP called to investigate multiple cases of veterans being offered medically assisted death, CBC.ca (Nov. 25, 2022), https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-maid-rcmp-investigation-1.6663885.

^[7] Bryan Passifiume, Another combat vet who says he was offered medical suicide comes forward, Toronto Sun (Apr. 25, 2025), https://torontosun.com/news/national/another-combat-veteran-offered-medical-suicide.