After many years of no movement at all, physicians may have to contend with the controversial end-of-life option of physician-#assistedsuicide. Also known as physician-assisted death (PAD), it involves helping terminally ill patients die rather than face excruciating pain and loss of dignity. For more than a decade, from 1997 to 2008, Oregon was the only state to allow physician-assisted death. But in recent years, Washington, Montana, and Vermont have legalized PAD, and the Canadian province of Quebec did so in April. Physicians, who have to carry out PAD, are significantly less enthusiastic about it than the general public. A recent study shows that more than two thirds of physicians oppose PAD, but according to a new Gallup poll, most Americans support it. Advocates argue that modern, state-of-the-art healthcare keeps terminally ill patients alive, but often leaves them so incapacitated and in such great pain that many of them would rather die. Compassion & Choices, an advocacy group for the terminally ill, reports that it receives 3000 queries a year from people seeking to hasten their deaths. Ordinarily, people who want to commit suicide are considered mentally ill and not competent to decide their fate, but terminally ill patients are seen as another category altogether. A 2000 study detected a clear distinction between terminally ill patients who were depressed and those who were simply hopeless. The hopeless patients were considered competent because they had rationally examined their situation and concluded that there wasnt much they could do. This is why advocates prefer the terms physician-assisted death or dying, rather than suicide, with all its connotations of mental illness. British physicians are debating whether a bill to legalise physician-assisted suicide in should be passed into law. The UK Parliaments House of Lords is currently debating the bill, which is approaching an as yet unscheduled vote; if approved, the bill then would go before the House of Commons. The British Medical Association is opposed to the law while its subsidiary journal The BMJ is in favor, stating that terminally ill patients should have a choice of when and how to end their own lives. The bill would allow a physician to prescribe a lethal drug to a terminally ill patient who requests it. One poll found that 60% of its physician respondents were opposed to the bill, but more than 70% of British citizens were in favor of the bill, according to a different survey.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 03:55:48 +0000
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