Resolutin 105: Task Force to Study Physician-Assisted Suicide

Whereas, Oregon was the first state to have physician-assisted suicide, starting in 1997, and it has withstood many legal challenges regarding physician-assisted suicide; and

Whereas, The Vermont Medical Society has reviewed physician-assisted suicide; and

Whereas, Switzerland, Belgium, and the Netherlands now allow legal physician-assisted suicide; and

Whereas, The rate of assisted suicide in Oregon has stayed fairly level at 30 to 60 per year, with about 85 percent of the patients in hospice at the time of death and only one in 10 making an explicit request to die by medication, averaging about one in 800 deaths each year; and

Whereas, Oregon law requires a specific protocol for assisted suicide with physician participation being voluntary - the patient must know alternatives to assisted suicide such as hospice care and palliative treatment; and

Whereas, Many terminal patients wish to have the option of assisted suicide available but do not elect to use the option (patients near death have reported concerns about their loss of autonomy, dignity, and enjoyment of life as factors in considering assisted suicide); and

Whereas, The Texas Medical Association House of Delegates has innovative ideas and actions and no fear in investigating and discussing important issues of medicine; therefore be it

RESOLVED, That the Texas Medical Association House of Delegates instruct the leadership to appoint a task force to study physician-assisted suicide, conduct a survey of Texas public opinion and TMA membership opinion, and submit a comprehensive report to the House of Delegates at its 2008 Annual Session.

Fiscal Note: $2,500.

Relevant TMA Policy

85.008 Physician Assisted Suicide : The Texas Medical Association supports AMA policy on physician-assisted suicide and supports TMA participation as an active state medical association member in the Coalition for Quality End-of-Life Care (Res. 29J, p 198, I-96).

Relevant AMA Policy

H-140.952 Physician Assisted Suicide. It is the policy of the AMA that : (1) Physician assisted suicide is fundamentally inconsistent with the physician's professional role. (2) It is critical that the medical profession redouble its efforts to ensure that dying patients are provided optimal treatment for their pain and other discomfort. The use of more aggressive comfort care measures, including greater reliance on hospice care, can alleviate the physical and emotional suffering that dying patients experience. Evaluation and treatment by a health professional with expertise in the psychiatric aspects of terminal illness can often alleviate the suffering that leads a patient to desire assisted suicide. (3) Physicians must resist the natural tendency to withdraw physically and emotionally from their terminally ill patients. When the treatment goals for a patient in the end stages of a terminal illness shift from curative efforts to comfort care, the level of physician involvement in the patient's care should in no way decrease. (4) Requests for physician assisted suicide should be a signal to the physician that the patient's needs are unmet and further evaluation to identify the elements contributing to the patient's suffering is necessary. Multidisciplinary intervention, including specialty consultation, pastoral care, family counseling and other modalities, should be sought as clinically indicated. (5) Further efforts to educate physicians about advanced pain management techniques, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, are necessary to overcome any shortcomings in this area. Physicians should recognize that courts and regulatory bodies readily distinguish between use of narcotic drugs to relieve pain in dying patients and use in other situations. (CEJA Rep. 8, I-93; Reaffirmed by BOT Rep. 59, A-96; Reaffirm: Res. 237, A-99)

270.965 Physician-Assisted Suicide . Our AMA strongly opposes any bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, as these practices are fundamentally inconsistent with the physician's role as healer. (Sub. Res, 5, I-98)

TMA House of Delegates: TexMed 2006