GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: Doctors association refuses to back euthanasia in Australia

domingo, 27 de noviembre de 2016

BioEdge: Doctors association refuses to back euthanasia in Australia

BioEdge: Doctors association refuses to back euthanasia in Australia
Bioedge

Doctors association refuses to back euthanasia in Australia

by Michael Cook | 26 Nov 2016 |

AMA President Michael Gannon

After surveying its members the Australian Medical Association has reaffirmed its opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide. “Doctors should not be involved in interventions that have as their primary intention the ending of a person's life,” says the latest version of its end-of-life care policy.
But doctors do "have an ethical duty to care for dying patients so that death is allowed to occur in comfort and with dignity".
The statement comes at a time when some state legislatures are debating euthanasia. A bill failed earlier this month in South Australia but supporters are pushing for bills in Victoria and Tasmania.
Euthanasia campaigners detected a shift in the AMA’s stance. Dr Rodney Syme, a urologist who says that he has helped about 100 patients to die, said that the AMA’s position that “laws in relation to euthanasia and physician assisted suicide are ultimately a matter for society and government” verged on neutrality rather than opposition.
But the AMA also demands that both patients and doctors need to be protected if euthanasia becomes legal – patients against abuse and doctors against coercion.
AMA President, Michael Gannon, said that 50% of the 4000 doctors who responded to the survey said doctors should not be involved in euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, 38% said they should be and 12% neither agreed or disagreed. Most respondents did not want to provide a euthanasia service themselves, although they agreed that giving lethal injections was a job for doctors.
Against the background of the failure of pollsters to capture the views of voters in the recent US presidential election, it is hard to tell whether this survey reflects the views of Australian doctors. There are 103,000 doctors in Australia; only 30,000 of them belong to the AMA; and only 4,000 responded to the survey.

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/doctors-association-refuses-to-back-euthanasia-in-australia/12104#sthash.B6yTdbUa.dpuf

There is quite a bit of literature in bioethics journals about the ethics of telling white lies to patients, especially with terminally ill patients. But a far more common ethical conundrum has been strangely neglected: whether children should be told the truth about Santa Claus. This, thankfully, has been remedied. Two psychologists have written an article in The Lancet Psychiatry arguing that children’s moral compass could be permanently deranged by the disappointment of learning that their parents have been telling them lies.

Kathy McKay, a clinical psychologist at the University of New England, Australia and a co-author, told The Guardian: “The Santa myth is such an involved lie, such a long-lasting one, between parents and children, that if a relationship is vulnerable, this may be the final straw. If parents can lie so convincingly and over such a long time, what else can they lie about?”

The psychologists follow in the footsteps of Richard Dawkins, who saw through the myth of Santa Claus at the tender age of 21 months. He told a conference in 2014: “Is it a good thing to go along with the fantasies of childhood, magical as they are? Or should we be fostering a spirit of scepticism? I think it's rather pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of the world which includes supernaturalism.”

We’d like to open up comments on BioEdge to a discussion of this issue.