Great News. The Massachusetts Medical Association overwhelmingly voted to re-affirm its position against assisted suicide at there recent meeting. This is a significant decision considering the fact that the suicide lobby has collected signatures to have the issue of assisted suicide placed on the November 2012 ballot.
A media release from the Massachusetts Medical Association today stated:
The Massachusetts Medical Society, the statewide association of physicians with more than 23,000 members, today voted to reaffirm its opposition to physician-assisted suicide, with its House of Delegates voting by a wide margin to maintain a policy the Society has had in effect since 1996.
Opposition to physician-assisted suicide was part of a larger policy statement that includes recognition of patient dignity at the end of life and the physician’s role in caring for terminally-ill patients. The policy was approved by more than 75 percent of the Society’s delegates.
Lynda Young, M.D., president of the Society, said that “Physicians of our Society have clearly declared that physician-assisted suicide is inconsistent with the physician’s role as healer and health care provider. At the same time we recognize the importance of patient dignity and the critical role that physicians have in end-of-life care.”
Dr. Young said the policy goes beyond a single statement of opposition to physician-assisted suicide to include “support for patient dignity and the alleviation of pain and suffering at the end of life.” Additionally, it includes the Society’s commitment to “provide physicians treating terminally-ill patients with the ethical, medical, social, and legal education, training, and resources to enable them to contribute to the comfort and dignity of the patient and the patient’s family.”
The policy was one of several reaffirmed and adopted at the Society’s 2011 Interim Meeting, which brings hundreds of physicians from across the state to examine and consider specific resolutions on public health policy, health care delivery, and organizational administration by the Society’s House of Delegates, its policy-making body. Resolutions adopted by the delegates become policies of the organization.
The Massachusetts Medical Association, which is the medical society in the United States, has made a very wise decision. Doctors should be healers and when healing is not possible, doctors should alleviate pain and suffering, but doctors should not be given the right to cause the death of their patients.
I would like to congratulate John Kelly from the disability rights group, Not Dead Yet, who worked hard to produce a good hand-out and to arrange transportation so that could speak with the doctors as they attended the meeting.
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