The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition urges doctors to sign this declaration at: https://doctorssayno.net/
Doctors Want No Part in Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
An Open Letter from Doctors around the world to medical ethicists and lawmakers.
Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide are not part of Medicine
We are determined that state-of-the-art care should be available for people who are dying and also for people suffering from chronic disease, disability or mental illness.
We believe that universal and equitable access to effective pain and symptom management, including mental healthcare and palliative care, is a fundamental human right.
We fully support the right of a person with decision-making capacity to decline a treatment offered to them.
We support clinicians and patients agreeing to withdraw or withhold burdensome and ineffective treatment in favour of supportive and palliative care.
We believe that doctors have the training and skill to promote and maintain a caring doctor-patient relationship.
It is our view that skilful and effective pain management neither requires nor uses lethal doses of drugs.
We believe neither assisted suicide nor euthanasia is a medical procedure. Doctors should play no role in the regulation, or practice, of euthanasia and assisted suicide.
We are especially concerned with protecting vulnerable people who can feel they have become a burden to others, and we are committed to supporting those who find their own life situations a heavy burden.
We endorse the views of Medical Associations around the world which hold that physician assisted suicide and euthanasia are unethical, even if they are made legal.
“Leave doctors to focus on advocating for patients – to cure sometimes, to relieve often and to comfort always.”
Join us
If you are a registered doctor and would like to add your name to this Open Letter, complete the form below. These details are required to confirm that you are a medical doctor.
Declaration of good faith and disclaimer
The organisers have sought, and continue to seek, support for this open letter from currently practicing medical doctors within participating countries, and every reasonable effort is made to verify that they hold a valid practicing certificate or licence. The list of supporting doctors is published in good faith with a commitment to correct any errors, but the organisers disclaim any liability for published names found to be ineligible.
Sign this declaration at: https://doctorssayno.net/
1 comment:
The problem is that most medical practitioners are paid by the Provincial governments, as 'contract employees'. In that role, they are no more than 'intake persons' at their clinics or offices, doing what people like Bonnie Henry (for the BC government) or Teresa Tam (for Canada's federal government) would bide them do. If they sign, they would most likely lose their livelihood (as some have already seen) and be deleted from the roll of the provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons. Note that most of these people - and I feel very sorry for them, as I was in a (different) self regulating professional career for 56 years - are not really 'doctors", as they only possess baccalaureate degrees. The word "doctor" has for many years been usurped for years by the English speaking medical establishment. But by signing, these physicians would show some 'ethical guts'. The world needs more of that.
I have seen compromising on ethical issues in the profession of which I was a member, and no professional body - whether called an Institute, Association, Board of Registration or College - is immune to violations of its Code of Ethics or bending the rules, closing the eyes (with wilflll blindness) and wishing that the 'problem' would just go away so that hey can save face. That's the reality today.
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