GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: Is the World Medical Association going to change on euthanasia?

domingo, 25 de febrero de 2018

BioEdge: Is the World Medical Association going to change on euthanasia?

BioEdge: Is the World Medical Association going to change on euthanasia?

Bioedge

Is the World Medical Association going to change on euthanasia?

by Michael Cook | 25 Feb 2018 |

Even though the legalisation of euthanasia has been gathering momentum around the world, the World Medical Association has refused to support it. However, the Singaporean head of the FIAMC (Fédération Internationale des Associations de Médecins Catholiques), has issued a stark warning about impending changes in WMA policy.

Dr John Lee, the FIAMC president, claims that the WMA has “plans to introduce two policy measures to facilitate worldwide abortion and euthanasia by curtailing doctors’ conscientious objection”. In an open letter to the WMA leadership he writes:

a revision is being considered to the Declaration of Oslo on Therapeutic Abortion (2006). The proposal put forward by the Working Group on Abortion Policy (WGAP) explicitly requires referral and also requires that the physician who objects must nevertheless provide “safe abortion” in some circumstances.

Member associations in Canada and the Netherlands have also requested changes in the WMA’s policy on euthanasia which would state that euthanasia is a matter for an individual doctor’s conscience. Dr Lee warns that this opens the door to dragooning doctors into a euthanasia regime:

By saying that the WMA does not condemn physicians who perform euthanasia where it is legal, the WMA is saying that euthanasia can be ethical if it is legal. For Canada and the Netherlands, with now the most liberal euthanasia laws in the world, to ask the WMA to be neutral on the ethics of assisted suicide and euthanasia is to invite legalization in additional countries.
Based on the Canadian experience, acceptance of the ethical neutrality of medically-assisted death has resulted in almost immediate challenges for physicians who are unable to refer because of moral, religious, or ethical concerns. It is a serious problem, with physicians put in the impossible position of having to choose between their conscience and being allowed to continue to care for their patients...
The threat to medical ethos, predicated as it is on respecting life without equivocation, will cause irreparable damage to to the practice of medicine and undermine the standard of care. Doctors who have exercise their right of conscientious objection to abortion and euthanasia will find themselves victims of coercion by their professional societies and the State. Their commitment to heal the sick and to provide comfort to the dying will be undermined, as they are forced motivation to violate their conscience or leave the professional altogether. This oppression of the silent majority by the vocal minority cannot end well.

BioEdge is a bioethical gadfly, nipping and biting at what we perceive to be bad arguments and unhealthy developments. But the recent story about a Japanese man who fathered 13 children with the help of mothers hired in Thailand suggests that almost any bioethical approach is better than none – and “none” was the position of the Bangkok judge who awarded him custody.

"The petitioner is an heir and president of a well-known company listed in a stock exchange in Japan, owner and shareholder in many companies ... which shows the petitioner has professional stability and an ample income to raise all the children. Therefore, it is ruled that all the 13 children are legal children of the petitioner … and the petitioner is their sole guardian."

Any bioethicist would immediately comment that this decision ignores many important issues. Are children just property? What about the rights of the surrogate mothers? Is it right to raise 13 boys without mothers? Is it right to raise 13 boys together like cattle? Is wealth a substitute for parenting? Is fatherhood simply a matter of sperm donation?

It sounds as though the judge merely wanted to hand the boys over to Japan. In his words (as reported) I can detect no inkling of the fact that the issue is more complicated than a commercial property transaction. It sounds as though Thailand urgently needs bioethics education.