Newsletter May 2018

Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia

Building safe environments.

Improve care. Make Euthanasia unimaginable.

In case anyone thinks the Canadian approach to euthanasia is the best or only approach, we have only to look to our nearest neighbour for proof to the contrary.

Recently the American Medical Association’s Council on Ethical and Juridical Affairs, having received a request from the Oregon delegation that the AMA  take a neutral stance on physician “aid-in-dying”, instead reaffirmed the very clear statements in the existing Code of Ethics regarding both euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. 

Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks. Instead of engaging in assisted suicide, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life. 

Euthanasia is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks. Euthanasia could readily be extended to incompetent patients and other vulnerable populations.

The involvement of physicians in euthanasia heightens the significance of its ethical prohibition. The physician who performs euthanasia assumes unique responsibility for the act of ending the patient’s life.

Instead of engaging in euthanasia, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life.

The Council’s measured and respectful document, written after extensive literature review and consultation with members, observes that “the ethical arguments advanced today supporting and opposing ‘physician-assisted suicide’ or ‘aid in dying’ are fundamentally unchanged from those examined in CEJA’s 1991 report on this topic”.

In other words, basic ethical principles do not change with time. Continue reading editorial.

Make euthanasia unimaginable.

Sincerely,

Catherine Ferrier
President


Alliance news

  • Looking for high quality palliative care education, free of charge?
    Visit our website and watch the videos of our March 24 conference, Improving care.

Doctor’s voices 

If you have an article, letter or interview relevant to our work published in any media, please let us know at info@collectifmedecins.org.

Call to action

  • Health Canada has initiated a public consultation to collect input and ideas for the purpose of developing a framework on palliative care. This consultation will run for three months from May to July, 2018. Different questions will be asked at different times.
    Take advantage of this opportunity to express your point of view!
  • If you live in Ontario, don’t forget to reach out to the candidates in the provincial election, about freedom of conscience and palliative care. The Coalition for Healthcare and Conscience offers some simple guidelines.
  • Are you a patient or a caregiver with lived experience in health care? If so you can apply for a place and financial support to attend the CMA Health Summit, August 21-22 in Winnipeg. The deadline is June 1.

In the news

 From the trenches

  • In an interview on the CBC’s The Current, entitled “A Compromised Life Is Worth Living“, disability advocate Ing Wong-Ward asserts that neither disability nor terminal illness rob life of dignity. Rather, when medical and social supports are inadequate or unavailable, suffering will be immense and the will to live is eroded.
  • Euthanasia was a hot topic at the ACFAS conference in Saguenay in early May. A doctor in the audience admitted to violating the law and writing false information on the Commission report.
  • Dr. Michèle Marchand, one of the architects of the Collège des Médecins du Québec’s promotion of euthanasia, reflected at the ACFAS conference on whether “medical aid in dying” is a right or health care (un droit ou un soin?), ignoring all of us who think it is neither.
  • A very thoughtful column by Patrick Lagacé in la Presse +, on palliative care and the fear of death.
  • A nurse voices her opinion to the rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and reminds us of the responsibility of health care professionals to promote health and safety, and preserve wholeness of character and integrity without moral disengagement.

If you have experiences related to our work that you would like to share with your colleagues, please send it to info@collectifmedecins.org.

Resources

Events

In the literature

If you come across articles that could be of interest to colleagues in the Alliance please send the reference to info@collectifmedecins.org.

 


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