Assisted Suicide in Wyoming: "Neutrality" of Physicians Organizations Promotes the Culture of Death

One of the purposes of professional medical organizations is to stand up for proper ethical policies and laws. Lately, we have seen too many such organizations going "neutral," on assisted suicide. How an organization dedicated to defending doctors and patients can be indifferent to one of the most important ethical and legal controversies that affect their patients' very lives is beyond me. But when a judge in Montana conjured a right to assisted suicide out of her hat, the head of the Montana Medical Association shrugged and sniffed that his group wasn't even discussing the issue because it had "bigger fish to fry."

The latest such abdication of responsibility was in Wyoming, and it resulted in an anti-assisted suicide bill being defeated in a legislative committee. From the story:

The bill would have held defendants who engage in assisted suicide accountable with a 20-year prison term, but members of the panel gutted most of the bill after complaints from the Wyoming Medical Society.

The doctors group, which deviates from the position the American Medical Association takes opposing assisted suicide, told members of the committee it took no position on the bill but asked legislators to remove the section of it effectively prohibiting doctors from giving patients drugs with the intent to kill them.

The bill was eventually pulled from consideration.

Why is this happening? I think part of it is that political types who spend the time and energy to get into positions of leadership in such organizations--I saw this too when I was in the active practice of law--tend to reflect the views of the liberal political Establishment, even in conservative areas (kind of like newspapers, now that I come to think about it). This sometimes leads to a divide between what leadership wants and the rank and file believe. Along this line, when the leadership of the British Medical Association put that august group into the neutral camp on assisted suicide in 2006, there was a grass roots revolt among its members and its opposition to legalization was firmly reestablished. I also think younger physicians have been steeped in the utilitarian/"choice ideology emerging in our times and consequently refuse to man the ramparts against destroying what is left of orthodox Hippocratic medicine.

In addition, the pro assisted suicide movement is abundantly funded by people and foundations of the mindset of George Soros. The easiest way to describe it is that they want the world to look like Amsterdam and they have the money to make it so. One of the tactics taken is to send out high end, well-tailored assisted suicide advocates to these groups, whose leadership tend to be high end and well tailored, and who also share a cultural and political perspective with their visitors. The goal is to neutralize medical opposition to assisted suicide, and it is beginning to work.