Non Cooperation in Assisted Suicide Spreads to Montana

When I have time, I intend to list the hospitals and institutions that have said no to assisted suicide in Washington. Now, apparently the same spirit of non cooperation with being complicit in assisted suicide that sprang to life in that state in the wake of the passage of I-1000 has spread to Montana, where a judge imposed assisted suicide as a constitutional right. From the story:

Four months after a District Court judge ruled that physician-assisted suicide is a right protected under the state’s constitution, terminally ill patients say they’re having trouble finding physicians willing to prescribe drugs that would hasten their deaths.

Denver-based advocacy group Compassion & Choices held a conference call Friday to read a statement from a 67-year-old Missoula woman who is dying of ovarian cancer. “I feel as though my doctors do not feel able to respect my decision to choose aid in dying,” Janet Murdock said. “Access to physician aid in dying would restore my hope for a peaceful, dignified death in keeping with my values and beliefs.”

I am sorry, nobody has the right to force doctors to have a patient’s blood on their hands. The woman has the right to medical care, palliation, and support of her community—and I hope she receives it. With proper care, she can be almost assured a peaceful passing. But while it is certainly true that she may have the right to ask for a lethal prescription—she doesn’t have the right to receive it—at least not yet. Meanwhile, not a word about suicide prevention in the story from the “compassionate” representatives of Compassion and Choices.

This case aside, apparently the Montana Medical Association, of which I have been very critical, has changed course. Where the leader of the group once said the MMA had “bigger fish to fry” than worry about assisted suicide—now with a different president—it seems to understand that assisted suicide is a lunker when it comes to the destruction of medical ethics:

After District Judge Dorothy McCarter’s December ruling, the Montana Medical Association adopted a policy that states the group: “does not condone the deliberate act of precipitating the death of a patient.”

The policy states that the organization acknowledges that some treatments to eliminate pain and suffering could hasten a patient’s death, but “does not accept the proposition that death with dignity may be achieved only through physician-assisted suicide.” Dr. Kirk Stoner of Plentywood, president of the MMA, says assisted suicide goes against the group’s ethics. “Our reason for being is to care for our patients,” he said.

This is excellent. Because something is legal—in this matter due to judicial activism in the extreme—that doesn’t make it right. I hope every doctor in Montana puts a plaque in his or her office declaring, “This is an assisted suicide free zone.”