As more states throughout the country consider adopting "right to die" laws, one Arizona hospice physician says she wouldn't prescribe a lethal dose of medication for a patient even if it was legal.
Her reasons begin with the Hippocratic oath and the pledge she took to "first do no harm," writes Ann Marie Chiasson, M.D., a hospice and palliative care specialist and assistant director of the fellowship at the University of Arizona's Center for Integrative Medicine in Tucson, in an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times.
As a hospice physician, Chiasson says she is asked about twice a year by a patient to prescribe a lethal dose of medication. It's a decision doctors in California may soon think about as the state joins Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana in allowing physician-assisted suicide. Similar laws are being considered in Arizona and a dozen other states, Chiasson says.
If patients ask about assisted-suicide, it's often because they don't know what to expect and don't want to lose control, she says. However, they don't need a prescription, they can just stop eating and drinking, which happens naturally as the body shuts down, she says. "It's gentle and easy," she says, arguing that those who promote physician-assisted suicide aren't educated about how to manage end-of-life care or how to have a good death.
To learn more:
- read the opinion piece