The importance of AMA's posture on
assisted suicide would be difficult to exaggerate.
Health authorities have refused to pay for his social and home care, offering
assisted suicide instead.
In its latest Code of Ethics, the AMA reaffirmed its long-held position that "allowing physicians to engage in
assisted suicide would cause more harm than good.
The most effective political opponents of
assisted suicide these days are organizations like the aptly named Not Dead Yet, a tough-minded defender of the rights of handicapped persons.
More recently, the
assisted suicide in Oregon of 29-year-old Brittany Maynard, who suffered from terminal brain cancer, received considerable national attention.
Patients with low health insurance were denied cancer treatment and instead offered
assisted suicide.
It has been more than 20 years since the case of another patient with Lou Gehrig's disease, Sue Rodriguez, gripped Canada as she fought for the right to
assisted suicide. She lost her appeal but took her own life with the help of an anonymous doctor in 1994, at the age of 44.
This ruling upheld the Criminal Code's ban on
assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Forms of
assisted suicide are also available in the American states of Oregon, Montana, Vermont, and Washington, as well as Belgium and Holland.