MAKE IT A SEPARATE PROFESSION AND CALL THEM WHAT THEY ARE, MURDERERS:

Our angst is not limited to cases of assisted-suicide. It is rather that engaging in it alters the mission of medicine. It strikes at the very core of our beings as healers. It would leave an indelible imprint on dialogues with all patients. Our worry is anchored in the deep recognition of the vulnerability of sick persons and the power differential that exists in the doctor-patient relationship.

Doctors can become angry with patients. Patients can desire to please their doctors. Such feelings, and many others, can profoundly affect decision-making in directions contrary to patients' best interests.

The risk is too great. The medical profession is able to make mistakes and to act from dishonourable motives; its members are far from infallible. To apprehend these facts one need look no further than the German Medical Association's May, 2012 apology for the complicity of (many) doctors under the Third Reich in abrogating their obligations as healers. [...]

The Hippocratic Oath includes a stern injunction: "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect." This constraint has guided medical doctors for more than 2,400 years. For example, it provides the inspiration and motivation for the steadfast refusal of the vast majority of physicians from participating in capital punishment. We do not administer the lethal injections that kill convicted criminals. Neither should we accept to administer it under scenarios envisaged by Judge Smith.

Physician-inflicted death is unnecessary and potentially harmful and I do not want to teach medical students how to end their patients' lives. If society concludes that it is advisable, it must not foist it lock, stock and barrel onto the medical profession. Physicians must not become the agents of implementation. Euthanasia and assisted-suicide must not become "medical" acts.

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