Action Alert – AMA Set to Vote on PAS Again
The American Medical Association (AMA) is set to vote on physician-assisted suicide at its annual meeting this coming June 8th – 12th in Chicago. The AMA has long upheld its opposition to PAS, but at last year’s annual meeting, Delegates voted to reject the AMA’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) thoughtful recommendation to maintain its opposition. Then, at an interim meeting in November 2018, the AMA House of Delegates voted to refer the CEJA report back to the Committee for further study.
We need your help to ensure that the AMA upholds their continued opposition to physician-assisted suicide. Here’s how you can help:
- If you are a Delegate, please attend the June 8-12 meeting to speak and vote in favor of the CEJA Report which reaffirms the AMA Code of Medical Ethics provisions in opposition to physician-assisted suicide.
- If you are not a Delegate, but live near Chicago, please join other physicians who plan to testify in favor of the CEJA report at the Reference Committee meeting on Sunday, June 9th from 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm in Regency Ballroom C. Please notify Greg Schleppenbach at gschleppenbach@usccb.org if you plan to testify.
- Non-Delegates should also contact House of Delegate members in your state and ask them to attend and vote in favor of the CEJA report. You can find who your states delegates are on the AMA website.
- Please comment on the online forum on the AMA website to express your support of the CEJA report. The online forum is now active. To comment on the forum click on this link or paste into your browser: https://www.ama-assn.org/amaone/hod-annual-overview. Then scroll down to “Online Forums” and click that, which takes you to the Online Forum list. In the second box entitled “Committee on Amendments to Constitution and Bylaws” click on “CEJA Reports”. Then click on the first topic: “Physician-Assisted Suicide”. At this point you’ll be prompted to sign in or create an account if you don’t have one already.
While this fight may not be taking place in Maryland, we need to do everything we can to ensure that the AMA rightly upholds their opposition to physician-assisted suicide.