AMA Reconsiders Opposition to Physician-Assisted Suicide

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Ralph A. Capone ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Annual Meeting ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Judicial Affairs ◽  
Aid In Dying ◽  
Recent Edition

In 1847, the American Medical Association established the first professional code of ethics for physicians in the United States. Expanded over the years to meet the needs of the medical profession, its most recent edition, adopted in 2016, includes a statement of AMA principles of medical ethics and eleven sets of opinions on various topics. After 169 years of opposition to physician involvement in directly causing patients’ deaths, the AMA is considering a change in its position—a position that has always averred the sacredness of every human life, asserting that the physician’s role is to cure when possible, care always, and ultimately err on the side of protecting and preserving human life. Following its annual meeting this past June, the AMA House of Delegates recommended that the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs study aid-in-dying as an end-of- life option and report back at the annual meeting in 2017.

Physician Aid-in-Dying: Toward A “Harm Reduction” Approach

1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Heilig ◽  
Stephen Jamison
Keyword(s):  
Social Issue ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
The United States ◽  
Active Euthanasia ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Bioethical Issue ◽  
The World ◽  
Aid In Dying ◽  
Open Discussion ◽  
The 1960S

As a bioethical and social issue, euthanasia has become in the 1990s what abor- tion was in the 1960s. Around the world, a de facto taboo on open discussion of the practice is seemingly falling by the wayside, as recognition increases that “active” euthanasia is taking place in spite of social and legal prohibitions. Euthanasia, or more specifically physician-assisted suicide, has become the most visible bioethical issue of the present era; and in the United States the debate has taken on a prominence and urgency unprecedented in our nation's history.

Oregon v. Ashcroft: The Battle over the Soul of Medicine

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
BEN A. RICH
Keyword(s):  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
The United States ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Death With Dignity ◽  
War Of Attrition ◽  
Dying Patients ◽  
Medical Disputes ◽  
Aid In Dying ◽  
Death With Dignity Act ◽  
Dignity Act

When one considers the protracted and continuing struggle of the citizens of Oregon to include physician-assisted suicide (also known as “physician aid in dying”) among the panoply of measures available to dying patients and the physicians who care for them, the depth and breadth of the issue becomes inescapable. The potential intractability of the dispute is illustrated by the very fact, noted in the preceding parenthetical phrase, that consensus eludes us on even the most basic of semantic points—how we are to most aptly characterize the conduct in question? The case featured in this issue's The Caduceus in Court must be examined as the latest battle in a long war of attrition waged by opponents of physician-assisted suicide against the Oregon Death with Dignity Act (“the Oregon Act”). After briefly reviewing that history, I will then consider the details of Oregon v. Ashcroft and the implications of the litigation not only for the care of dying patients but also for the regulation of medical practice in the United States and, more broadly still, the search for resolution of serious medical disputes in a democratic society.

Montana's courting of physician aid in dying: Could Des Moines follow suit?

2010 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 2-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur G. Svenson
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Life Support ◽  
Lethal Dose ◽  
Terminally Ill ◽  
The United States ◽  
Equal Protection ◽  
Appellate Court ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Aid In Dying

Montana recently joined Oregon and Washington as the only states in the nation to legalize the choice among terminally ill adults to hasten death by self-administering a lethal dose of drugs prescribed by a physician. Unlike Oregon and Washington, however, Montana's legalization of physician aid in dying (PAID) resulted not from public consideration of a statewide initiative, but from the judicial resolution of a lawsuit, Baxter v. Montana. As originally conceived, a trial judge reasoned that the unenumerated right to PAID is embraced by enumerated state constitutional rights to privacy and dignity. On appeal, Montana's supreme court jettisoned this construct, and, in its place, fashioned a legal home for PAID out of state homicide, consent defense, and end-of-life statutes. Central to this court's statutory rendering is the finding that state law, allowing terminally ill Montanans sustained by life support to withdraw such treatment and die, discriminates against terminally ill Montanans not sustained by life support who seek death; these classes are similar, the justices reckoned, entitling both to choose death. This analysis examines Montana's courting of PAID, offering textual examination of state trial and appellate court opinions, an accounting of legal strategies advanced in amici curiae briefs, and commentary about the problems and prospects with Baxter's holding. I argue, ultimately, that the equality principles statutorily conceived in Baxter (1) could be parroted in the vast majority of states that both criminalize assisted suicide and enumerate constitutional equal protection guarantees, and (2) could replace sub silentio the equal protection paradigm applied to “physician-assisted suicide” by the United States Supreme Court in its landmark Vacco v. Quill ruling.

Rights Discourse and Assisted Suicide

2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-99
Author(s):  
Penney Lewis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
The United States ◽  
Medical Professionals ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Supreme Courts ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Law Professors

The debate surrounding the legalization of assisted suicide has been galvanized in recent years by reports of specific cases of assisted suicide, primarily involving physicians such as Kevorkian and Quill, and by impassioned pleas for legalization and assistance in suicide from individuals suffering in the throes of terminal or agonizing diseases, such as Sue Rodriguez. Media attention on criminal trials of individuals accused of assisting in a suicide has heightened public awareness of the issue. The constitutionality of criminal prohibitions on assisted suicide has been tested in various jurisdictions, and has recently been considered by the Supreme Courts of both the United States and Canada. Following two narrowly unsuccessful attempts to enact dignified death provisions by referenda in Washington and California, Oregon voters passed the first of such proposed laws in November 1994, providing for physician-assisted suicide under certain specified conditions. Attempts to introduce legislation to legalize assisted suicide in other jurisdictions have been galvanized by the success in Oregon. A model statute has been drafted by a group of law professors, philosophers and medical professionals.

Aid-in-Dying: Should We Decriminalize Physician-Assisted Suicide and Physician-Committed Euthanasia?

1992 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 369-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria T. CeloCruz
Keyword(s):  
Medical Journal ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Active Euthanasia ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Voluntary Active Euthanasia ◽  
Aid In Dying

Recent news stories, medical journal articles, and two state voter referenda have publicized physicians’ providing their patients with aid-in-dying. This Note distinguishes two components of aid-in-dying: physician-assisted suicide and physiciancommitted voluntary active euthanasia. The Note traces these components’ distinct historical and legal treatments and critically examines arguments for and against both types of action. This Note concludes that aid-in-dying measures should limit legalization initiatives to physician-assisted suicide and should not embrace physician-committed voluntary active euthanasia.

The Practice of Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide in the United States

JAMA ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 280 (6) ◽  
pp. 507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ezekiel J. Emanuel ◽  
Elisabeth R. Daniels ◽  
Diane L. Fairclough ◽  
Brian R. Clarridge
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
The United States ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide

scholarly journals Euthanasia and suicide: a medical and social discourse

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-112
Author(s):  
V. N. Ostapenko ◽  
I. V. Lantukh ◽  
A. P. Lantukh
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Adequate Quality ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Strong Explosion ◽  
The Right

Annotation. The problem of suicide and euthanasia has been particularly updated with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a strong explosion of suicide, because medicine was not ready for it, and the man was too weak in front of its pressure. The article considers the issue of euthanasia and suicide based on philosophical messages from the position of a doctor, which today goes beyond medicine and medical ethics and becomes one of the important aspects of society. Medicine has achieved success in the continuation of human life, but it is unable to ensure the quality of life of those who are forced to continue it. In these circumstances, the admission of suicide or euthanasia pursues the refusal of the subject to achieve an adequate quality of life; an end to suffering for those who find their lives unacceptable. The reasoning that banned suicide: no one should harm or destroy the basic virtues of human nature; deliberate suicide is an attempt to harm a person or destroy human life; no one should kill himself. The criterion may be that suicide should not take place when it is committed at the request of the subject when he devalues his own life. According to supporters of euthanasia, in the conditions of the progress of modern science, many come to the erroneous opinion that medicine can have total control over human life and death. But people have the right to determine the end of their lives while using the achievements of medicine, as well as the right to demand an extension of life with the help of the same medicine. They believe that in the era of a civilized state, the right to die with medical help should be as natural as the right to receive medical care. At the same time, the patient cannot demand death as a solution to the problem, even if all means of relieving him from suffering have been exhausted. In defense of his claims, he turns to the principle of beneficence. The task of medicine is to alleviate the suffering of the patient. But if physician-assisted suicide and active euthanasia become part of health care, theoretical and practical medicine will be deprived of advances in palliative and supportive therapies. Lack of adequate palliative care is a medical, ethical, psychological, and social problem that needs to be addressed before resorting to such radical methods as legalizing euthanasia.

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