Mass. Medical Society opposes assisted suicide
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Dr. Dennis Dimitri, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society. The professional organization maintained its opposition to physician-assisted suicide in legislative testimony on Tuesday.
The Massachusetts Medical Society, a professional society representing about 25,000 Bay State doctors and medical students, maintained its tradition of opposing physician-assisted suicide during testimony before the legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Health Tuesday.
Testifying on behalf of MMS was Dr. Henry Dorkin, who said while it is understandable that some patients in extreme duress may find death preferable to continued living, allowing doctors the right to prescribe medication that would result in death would do more harm than good.
“Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer,” Dorkin said. “Instead of participating in assisted suicide, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life in order that these patients continue to receive emotional support, comfort care, adequate pain control and good communication.”
A ballot question that would allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients was narrowly defeated in 2012, with 51 percent of voters opposed and 49 percent in favor. The following year, Vermont passed its own assisted-death law, joining Washington and Oregon. California followed suit this month.
Now, the issue is being taken up again in Massachusetts, with a bill filed by Rep. Louis Kafka (D-Stoughton).The Joint Committee on Public Health took up in a hearing Tuesday.
MMS has had a long-standing policy in opposition to physician-assisted suicide, first approved by its members in 1996. Its policy also includes support of patient dignity and the alleviation of pain and suffering at the end of life.
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