Always Care, Never Kill: How Physician-Assisted Suicide Endangers the Weak, Corrupts Medicine, Compromises the Family, and Violates Human Dignity and Equality
The Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3004, March 24, 2015
22 Pages Posted: 13 Feb 2018
Date Written: March 24, 2015
Abstract
Allowing physician-assisted suicide would be a grave mistake for four reasons. First, it would endanger the weak and vulnerable. Second, it would corrupt the practice of medicine and the doctor–patient relationship. Third, it would compromise the family and intergenerational commitments. And fourth, it would betray human dignity and equality before the law. Instead of helping people to kill themselves, we should offer them appropriate medical care and human presence. We should respond to suffering with true compassion and solidarity. Doctors should help their patients to die a dignified death of natural causes, not assist in killing. Physicians are always to care, never to kill.
Keywords: PAS, Physician Assisted Suicide, Death With Dignity, Autonomy, Suffering, Medicine, Equality, Dignity
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