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Jack Ende, MD, President of the American College of Physicians, as quoted in a Jan. 2018 article, “Hospitalists Weigh Ethical, Practical Impacts of Aid-in-Dying Laws,” available at acphospitalist.org, stated

“The principle of patient autonomy is critical and must be respected, but it is not absolute and must be balanced with other ethical duties and principles. Physician-assisted suicide asks physicians to breach both the general duties of ‘first, do no harm’ (nonmaleficence) and to act in the patient’s best interests (beneficence), and also the specific prohibition on physician-assisted suicide that has been a tenet of medical ethics since Hippocrates. Proponents of physician-assisted suicide have not offered strong enough arguments to change that.”

Jan. 2018