Contact:
CMA Media Relations Karen Nikos, 916-551-2069; Ron Lopp, 916-551-2042

SACRAMENTO- The California Medical Association, representing 35,000 California physicians, today reaffirmed its position against Physician –Assisted Suicide, believing that assisting in someone’s death is in direct conflict with a doctor’s ethical duties.

“The CMA believes in humane and compassionate care for the terminally ill, including appropriate pain control and counseling for the dying and their families. But assisting someone to die is unethical and unacceptable, and is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer,” said Dr. Anmol S. Mahal, president of the CMA. The statement came in reaction to legislation being introduced in California to make physician-assisted suicide legal. The CMA has taken a position, and reaffirmed its position against physician-assisted suicide, five times since the 1980s. CMA policy is consistent with the policy of the American Medical Association as well.

CMA's concerns about passing a law that would legalize physician-assisted suicide include:

• Potential for abuse by health insurers and family members. The “right” to a lethal dose of drugs could become an expectation, then a duty, pressed forward by scarce resources and a belief by the dying that they are a burden to others.



• A misunderstanding of pain control. Most pain can be controlled through appropriate medication and comfort care in a hospice setting. The CMA recognizes the need for appropriate end-of-life care, which may include, when required, aggressive treatment of pain, recognizing that in some cases such treatment may hasten death.



• The incapability of a doctor or other health care provider to truly determine consent of the dying individual. The physician is placed in a difficult position of having to evaluate whether the patient's request is being driven by inappropriate external or internal pressure to end the life – such as the patient’s fear of being a burden. Doctors could be forced to make a highly subjective decision that the patient’s life is no longer worth living – again a breach of medical ethics in conflict with the role of a healer.



• A lack of any scientific certainty in determining the course of a patient’s illness. Someone given six months to live may actually live several more years with a reasonable quality of life.



• The possibility that doctors and other health care workers could find themselves on a slippery slope that would extremely compromise medical ethics. Once Physician-Assisted Suicide is an ethical or acceptable activity, we have no way of arguing against extending the procedure to patients who are disabled or suffering from conditions other than terminal illness.