Vermont's assisted suicide law was passed in 2013. In 2015, the legislature directed the health department to issue a biennial report on its implementation, requiring very little information, less than Oregon provides in its annual assisted suicide reports. It gives only the number of state reports filed by prescribers wishing to guarantee their immunity from civil or criminal … [Read more...] about Vermont’s Second Assisted Suicide Report Does Not Reassure
Assisted Suicide Again on Agenda of AMA Meeting
In October the American Medical Association’s Ethics Committee, following at least its third extensive study, advised the association to maintain its long-standing opposition to assisted suicide. Here is a news story by Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2018/10/american-medical-association-ethics.html. Here … [Read more...] about Assisted Suicide Again on Agenda of AMA Meeting
Hopeful News from the AMA House of Delegates
Barbara Lyons of the Patient Rights Action Fund (609-759-0322, Ext 501) reports this afternoon that not all the news from the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates meeting was as bad as it seemed. True Dignity reported on June 11, 2018 that the delegates had not accepted the recommendation of the AMA’s ethics board that it refuse to call assisted suicide by the … [Read more...] about Hopeful News from the AMA House of Delegates
The Elephant in the Room
Numerous news reports and editorials have flooded media outlets over the past two weeks following the tragic deaths by suicide of two celebrities, concurrently with the release of a CDC study confirming a significant rise in suicide nationwide over the past 20 years. There has been speculation about the role played by depression and other mental illness in these deaths, and … [Read more...] about The Elephant in the Room
Full AMA House of Delegates Sends Assisted Suicide Back to Ethics Board for Further Review
Defying the advice of its own ethics committee to continue calling assisted suicide what it really is and to continue opposing it, the full AMA House of Delegates, with a 56% majority, today asked the ethics committee to reconsider its decision, made after two years of study. The ethics committee will issue another report before the 2019 meeting of the House of … [Read more...] about Full AMA House of Delegates Sends Assisted Suicide Back to Ethics Board for Further Review