A group of SA doctors has publicly opposed any planned attempts to legalise euthanasia, alleging it will “turn doctors into executioners”.
Controversial Cape Town-based Professor Sean Davison announced earlier this year that he planned to lobby for such legislation in SA, and that his organisation DignitySA would launch a petition to this end.
The dignitysa.com website explains: “South Africa’s laws currently prohibit assisted dying.
“It is our belief that it is a basic human right to die with dignity, and that those afflicted with a terminal illness should be allowed the option to end his or her life, with assistance, in order to preserve personal privacy and dignity, as well as alleviate suffering.”
Now another group, Doctors For Life, which represents more than 1 800 medical doctors and specialists, three-quarters of whom practise in SA, have slammed this move.
The group maintains: “Assisted suicide remains illegal in South Africa, and in all but five countries in the world.
“The World Medical Association says it is an unethical act. So Davison’s use of the illegal actions of a few doctors in South Africa as motivation for a change in the law is illogical.
“It would be like legalising corruption because it happens in the civil service!”
The group said there were good reasons the vast majority of the world’s medical organisations opposed the legalisation of assisted suicide, especially in developing countries.
“Chief among them is that it is a practice which turns the doctor into occasional executioner, and radically changes the doctor-patient relationship.
“Assisted suicide is also a practice which is almost impossible to police, especially in a country like ours, with poorly functioning police and justice systems. It is then too easily abused, as numbers of good scientific studies have shown,” Doctors for Life said.
“We must be very careful not to trade off the security of vulnerable people in the hands of medical personnel across our land, in favour of the demands of a comparatively small number of people who demand legal freedom to control the timing of their deaths.”
The doctors said resources should instead be used to train medical practitioners to provide care for terminally ill patients, including managing their pain levels.
Cape Argus