Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) now stands at a tipping point in the United States. This practice involves a physician prescribing a non-FDA approved lethal overdose of drugs to a person believed to have a terminal illness. For 30 years, pro-assisted suicide organizations have been lobbying for legalization of assisted suicide throughout the U.S. In 1997, Oregon became the first state to pass PAS legislation. In April of this year, Hawai'i became the sixth. Nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population now lives in a jurisdiction where PAS is legal.
Another critical event took place in June 2018. The American Medical Association's ethics council, which spent the past 2 years reviewing PAS, concluded that the AMA should reaffirm its longstanding opposition to the practice. The current AMA position states that assisted suicide “is fundamentally incompatible with the physician's role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.” However, the AMA's governing body narrowly rejected the ethics council report and referred the issue back for further study.
