Medical Society to reconsider assisted suicide stance

The Massachusetts Medical Society is expected this week to consider withdrawing its longtime opposition to assisted suicide.

Instead, the MMS may adopt a position of engaged neutrality on legislative efforts to authorize the practice, the organization said in a press release Tuesday. That position is not without a caveat: physicians would not be required to practice medical aid-in-dying if it violates personally-held ethical principles. 

The MMS said in October it still opposes physician-assisted suicide as a bill currently before the Joint Committee on Public Health would legalize the practice for terminally ill patients. 

The organization’s October statement adhered to the American Medical Association’s Code of Ethics, which calls assisted suicide fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as a healer. 

Sine 1996, the MMS’ has been opposed to assisted suicide, but opted to revisit the topic earlier this year and launched a survey of its 25,000 physician members. The survey is expected to be complete in December.

Opposition to assisted suicide in the state may be softening, as a ballot question legalizing the practice was narrowly defeated in 2012.