Earlier this month the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) broke ranks with the American Medical Association (AMA) by adopting a position of “engaged neutrality” on assisted suicide and euthanasia The AMA, an umbrella group for dozens of American medical associations, opposes “aid in dying”. Its official position is that “Physician-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.” But at its Congress of Delegates in New Orleans the AAFP, the second largest component society of the AMA with more than 131,400 members, repudiated this. A super-majority of the delegates voted to adopt a position of “engaged neutrality” and to reject the use of the terms “assisted suicide” or “physician-assisted suicide”. “Through our ongoing and continuous relationship with our patients, family physicians are well-positioned to counsel patients on end-of-life care, and we are engaged in creating change in the best interest of our patients,” said the AAFP president Michael Munger, a physician from Kansas.
(BioEdge October 2018)