As healthcare professionals, we have a legal duty of care for the safety and wellbeing of our patients.
We affirm, in line with the World Medical Association Declaration on Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide (adopted by the 70th WMA General Assembly, Tbilisi, Georgia, in October 2019), our utmost respect for human life and our opposition to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
No doctor, nurse, or other healthcare professional should be forced to participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide, nor should they be obliged to make referral decisions to this end.
Any change in the law undermines the public’s trust in healthcare professionals and would devalue the inherent dignity of frail, elderly, and disabled patients.
The prohibition of killing is the only safeguard that will protect our patients.
We will not take our patients’ lives, even if they ask us and the law allows.
Instead, we have a duty of care towards those in pain and in distress, to help them to live until they die.
Director, Our Duty of Care, Glasgow
Consultant Nephrologist, London