AMA Rejects Recommendation to Reaffirm Opposition to Medical Aid in Dying

The American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates today voted 53 to 47 percent to reject a report by its Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) that recommended the AMA maintain its Code of Medical Ethics’ opposition to medical aid in dying. Instead, the House of Delegates referred the report back to CEJA for further work. The AMA Code of Medical Ethics Opinion 5.7 adopted 25 years ago in 1993 before medical aid in dying was authorized anywhere in the United States says: “...permitting physicians to engage in assisted suicide would ultimately cause more harm than good. Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer...” In contrast, the CEJA report implicitly acknowledges that medical aid-in-laws improve end-of-life care, by spurring conversations between physicians and terminally ill patients about all end-of-life care options, such as hospice and palliative care: “Patient requests for [medical aid in dying] invite physicians to have the kind of difficult conversations that are too often avoided. They open opportunities to explore the patient’s goals and concerns, to learn what about the situation the individual finds intolerable and to respond creatively to the patient’s needs...” said the report. “Medicine as a profession must ensure that physicians are skillful in engaging in these difficult conversations and knowledgeable about the options availabl...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs