Christian Husband, Dad, Grandpa, Mentor, and Family Doctor
Medical Director, Mountain Valley Hospice & Palliative Care
Medical Director, The ARC Lexington
A healthy society helps people manage inevitable decline and death with care and dignity. It doesn’t abdicate that responsibility by helping them kill themselves instead. https://t.co/HI5EkeKVnA via @WSJopinion
We are disappointed by the vote by the New York Senate. The reality is that assisted suicide harms our most vulnerable neighbors.
We call on Governor Hochul to veto this dangerous bill.
Glad to see the American Medical Association reaffirmed yesterday despite the vote in NY Senate… Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.
Instead of engaging in assisted suicide, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life. Physicians:
1Should not abandon a patient once it is determined that cure is impossible.
2Must respect patient autonomy.
3Must provide good communication and emotional support.
4Must provide appropriate comfort care and adequate pain control. https://t.co/KQThJr6XgG:
Lawmakers in New York are considering a measure legalizing assisted suicide. Cardinal Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal expressing concern. Cardinal Dolan discusses his piece & responds to advocates who say this is a secular issue.
Against Physician-Assisted Suicide: The Uncertainty of Prognosis
Physician-assisted suicide presumes a certainty about death that medicine simply cannot guarantee. A key example comes from hospice care, where eligibility requires a physician’s clinical judgment that a patient likely has six months or less to live. Yet data show that approximately 1 in 7 hospice patients live longer than six months—some even go on to stabilize or improve with comfort-focused care.
This fact underscores a profound reality: prognosis is not an exact science. People can defy expectations. They may regain strength with proper symptom control, emotional support, and the removal of burdensome interventions. Once in the nurturing environment of hospice, many rediscover quality of life and time with loved ones they thought was lost.
If we legalize physician-assisted suicide based on predicted life expectancy, we risk making irreversible decisions on the basis of inherently uncertain estimates. Patients who might otherwise experience meaningful months or even years of life could be cut short by a system that encourages death rather than supports living well to the end.
Rather than promoting physician-assisted suicide, we should be expanding access to high-quality hospice and palliative care—care that honors dignity not by hastening death, but by helping people live fully, even in the face of terminal illness.
The AMA Medical Code of Ethics shares these important points regarding the major problems for us as physicians regarding Physician-Assisted Suicide....https://t.co/5z8hv0VBB0
New York Needs More Hospice Care, Not “Death with Dignity” Physician-Assisted Suicide: If you agree contact your NY State Senator that you are AGAINST S138 Medical Aid in Dying. https://t.co/cr31LRtLNC