Signs of things to come in medicine
Currently happening largely under radar, in Montana.
Physicians in Montana could be facing “kill-on-demand” orders from patients who want to commit suicide if a district court judge’s opinion pending before the state Supreme Court is affirmed.
The case has attracted nominal attention nationwide, but lawyers with the Christian Legal Service have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the pending case because of what it would mean to doctors within the state, as well as the precedent it would set.
The concern is over the attack on doctors’ ethics and religious beliefs – as well as the Hippocratic oath – that may be violated by a demand that they prescribe deadly chemicals or in some other way assist in a person’s death.
Currently, doctors are allowed to ‘opt-out’ of procedures they’re morally or ethically opposed to, but the threat looms large that such conscience protection will be wiped out.
A ‘right to die’ advocate of the former Hemlock Society (now called ‘Compassion & Choices’) argues that someone who’s going to die should have the right to choose the timing and method. And doctors should be compelled to assist in the act.
But Montana Assistant Attorney General Anthony Johnston disagrees.
Johnston told the television station, “The laws governing the medical profession say the medical profession is to heal, not to kill.”
The end of conscience protection in America is something we all must be thinking seriously about.
