Campaign Calls for Loyalty to Patient Health rather than Assisted Suicide

By Kathleen Gilbert

December 16, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Anti-euthanasia groups in Canada and Oregon are calling physicians, caregivers, and concerned citizens across the world to "Take the Pledge" to pursue genuine care for even the most dependent patients, and never to consent to assisted suicide.

Take-the-pledge.com, created by The Physicians for Compassionate Care in Oregon and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, provides links to several anti-assisted suicide groups and invites caregivers and other visitors to make a pledge that reaffirms the duty to “do no harm.”

Rather than providing assisted suicide, by signing the pledge the signer affirms, “Whenever I help provide care for a terminally-ill patient, I will provide optimal comfort care until natural death.”

“I will support my friend's or family member's wishes not to prolong the dying process with futile treatment,” the pledge continues. However, “I will never give a deadly drug to anyone even if asked, nor will I suggest suicide.”

The pledge concludes, “I will always affirm and guard these ethical principles with integrity, recognizing that every human life is inherently valuable.”

The campaign will be providing a professionally produced pledge that can be displayed and will send up-to-date information on a voluntary basis to medical care-givers to keep them informed.

Assisted suicide was legalized in Montana last week through a court ruling, joining Oregon and Washington.


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