Witnessing and Experiencing Miraculous Healings and Attitudes Toward Physician-Assisted Suicide

Abstract

Drawing on insights from cognitive psychology, I argue that the religious experiences of witnessing and/or experiencing a miraculous physical healing event will be negatively associated with attitudes towards physician-assisted suicide. I evaluate this argument using data from the 2007 wave of the Baylor Religion Survey (N = 1598). I find that those who have witnessed and/or experienced a miraculous physical healing have more negative attitudes toward physician-assisted suicide than those who have not witnessed and/or experienced such an event, even when controlling for religiosity, sociodemographic, and personality factors. These results show that researchers should consider if and how religious experiences influence people’s attitudes.