Special Newsletter 2023

The Catholic Church strongly opposes physician-assisted suicide and so does the American Medical Association. The American Medical Association (AMA) rejected an effort to change the group’s stand against physician-assisted suicide at a meeting in Maryland this week. This follows a previous effort in 2018 which also met with defeat.

 AMA leaders voted down two resolutions that would have eliminated the AMA's current opposition to the practice. The first resolution would have switched the organization to a position of support for physician-assisted suicide. The second resolution would have the AMA switch to a neutral position. 

The current AMA code states,

“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.” 

The resolutions also would have changed the official  terminology used by the AMA from "physician-assisted suicide" to "Medical Aid in Dying" (MAID). The AMA feels that the term physician-assisted suicide is a more accurate description of the deadly and unethical practice.