Active euthanasia, the right to commit suicide with the help of doctors

"Causing deaths through efforts to reduce pain is very different than administering overdoses with the intent to end lives. Pain relief treatment is not euthanasia and giving increasing doses of narcotics can be incompetent medical practice " at a certain point different pain relief modalities can be required. Unfortunately, some physicians" medical knowledge is substandard in this regard," Margaret Somerville, director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University" It goes on to further clarify with, ""If we were to go down the route they are talking about, it would create more confusion," says Schadenberg, who believes, if the College"s proposal became law, doctors would be under more scrutiny when patients on pain medication die. "Why did they use that high amount? Did they use it to kill the pain or kill the patient?" (US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health Search. Oct 19, 2009) From The Life Resources Charitable Trust with regards to pain as a reason for early death: "Hard cases make bad laws: Euthanasia is usually promoted by those who have had a loved one die in agony, without the benefits of good palliative care. The answer is not to change the law, but rather improve standards of care". "Voluntary euthanasia always becomes involuntary: The 1990 Remmelink Report commissioned by the Dutch government confirms the inevitable slide into flouting legal safeguards." (The Life Resources Charitable Trust, 2011) Legislation will numb public conscience: The law is a powerful educator of public conscience. People cease to have strong feelings once a practice becomes legal and widely accepted. The Nazi euthanasia program revealed the desensitizing of those involved. One reason many do not consider that is similar to the abortion issue is: Personal autonomy important, but never absolute: A person's decision to end their life, or have an abortion, can have profound, often lifelong effects on the lives of others. (The mother, father & family with abortion), and with family there may be guilt, anger and bitterness felt by those left behind. Patients are denied final stage of growth. Those involved in hospice work often see healing of family relationships and rediscovery of mutual love. Words are spoken that help sustain those left behind. (The Life Resources Charitable Trust 2011). Another issue regarding the legalization of euthanasia is physician ethics. The old proverbial "do no harm." The phrase primum non nocere is greatly cherished by the profession. It is the first "golden rule" that we transmit to our junior colleagues. Another related but less well known phrase, used by medical luminaries such as Thomas Syndenham36 and James Makittrick Adair37 is juvantia et laedenti. It is derived from the Latin verbs iuvo ("help") and laedo ("hurt"). I propose that in our deliberations about euthanasia, we keep in our collective imagination the notion of juvantia et laedentia: "things that [can] help and things that [can] harm." & to go a bit further "A physician's assistance in suicide can indeed be construed as helping the patient: helping in the sense of being an ally in the patient's quest to fulfill personal goals, or helping by buttressing individual autonomy. However, there are also features of such action that can be qualified as harmful: harmful by sowing confusion in trainees about the conceptual core of traditional clinical methods, or harmful by eroding respect for absolute moral values such as "do not kill." (The Permanente Journal, Fall 2011). "Also euthanasia undermines medical excellence: As the Dutch experience reveals, euthanasia doctors tend to be uninterested in palliative care. It is easier for doctors to administer euthanasia, than learn techniques for caring for the dying." (The Life Resources Charitable Trust, 2011). From Professor David E. Richmond MB ChB MHPEd. MD FRACP FRCP Professor Emeritus David Richmond is a practicing physician in Geriatric Medicine. He was the inaugural Professor of Geriatric Medicine in the University of Auckland, and Assistant Dean in the Auckland Faculty of Medicine. He is a past president of the New Zealand Society for Geriatrics and was a member of the Prime Ministerial Task force on Positive Aging. He assisted with writing the constitution for the Research Ethics Committee at Auckland Hospital, and chaired that committee for its first three years. He was a founding member of the Health Research Council's Ethics Committee. He introduced the teaching of clinical ethics to the Auckland School of Medicine, has taught courses in Bioethics and published several papers on aspects of Medical Ethics. He currently chairs the Board of the HOPE Foundation, a charitable trust dedicated to fostering research into aging and the effects of aging on society: " It is not reasonable to introduce radical legislation on the basis of the perceived needs of a tiny proportion of the population. It is not compassionate to elevate the rights of a small minority over the rights of the majority. It would not be consistent with the nation's stance on capital punishment. Its practice could not be confined within "strict guidelines" as its proponents assert. It introduces a conflict of interest for medical practitioners who will be expected to execute it, and will change the ethos of the health system from preserving life to providing death. The philosophical stance that allows euthanasia to be contemplated at all is flawed and dangerous. It is the wrong solution for the majority of people who might request it. It has the potential to reduce interest in and funding for palliative care and the hospice movement. It does not guarantee a "good death". Legalizing euthanasia gives too much power to the medical profession." (The Life Resources Charitable Trust 2011). Please excuse some of the improper text formatting regarding the quotations, done because of limited space.