Study Shows Doctors Affected by Euthanasia Practice
by AFA Journal
October 20, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A new study reported by the Physicians for Compassionate Care reveals severe effects on doctors who perform physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia. "Many doctors who participated in euthanasia and/or PAS are adversely affected emotionally and psychologically by their experiences," as concluded in the study.
"Doctors describe being profoundly adversely affected, being shocked by the suddenness of the death, being caught up in the patient's drive for assisted suicide, having a sense of powerlessness and feeling isolated. There is evidence of pressure on and intimidation of doctors by some patients to assist in suicide," as further concluded in the report.
Dr. Kenneth Stevens, an Oregon cancer specialist with the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA), describes these effects as substantial.
Helping patients die "represents a shift away from the sentimental values of medicine to heal and promote human wholeness and moves to a position where the doctor is causing the death," Stevens explained. "So, the doctors are shocked by the sadness of death."
Similar feelings are shared by doctors in the Netherlands and in Oregon -- both places where euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are legal.
One doctor from the Netherlands said, "Many physicians who had practiced euthanasia mentioned that they would be most reluctant to do so again." Another one said that he felt "awful" the first time he performed euthanasia. And Peter Admiral, a leader of Holland's euthanasia movement, said, "You will never get accustomed to killing somebody. We are not trained to kill. With euthanasia, your nightmare comes true."
As Physicians for Compassionate Care put it, PAS is wrong because "it changes the role of the physician in society from the traditional one of healer to that of the executioner."
This article, printed with permission, appears in the October 2006 issue of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association.
