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Air Date: March 30, 2015
Host: Vic Eliason
Guest: Dr. David Stevens
Dr. David Stevens is the chief Executive Officer of the Christian Medical & Dental Society, a national organization of Christian doctors that seek to change hearts in healthcare. Dr. Stevens is the author of ‘Jesus MD: A Doctor Examines the Great Physician’ and ‘Beyond Medicine: What Else You need to Know to be a Healthcare Missionary.’ Dr. Stevens has helped develop an evangelism training program that teaches thousands of doctors and others how to share their faith in a healthcare setting.
Doctor (physician) assisted suicide says that when a patient is terminally ill and the doctor believes they only have only 6 months to live, the patient can request a lethal prescription. This must be done through 2 oral requests and 1 written request. This process requires that the doctor lie on the death certificate in 3 states and say that the patient died by their disease and not of suicide.
Isn’t this a contradiction to the Hippocratic Oath? Yes it is but as Vic pointed out, in order to prevent doctor assisted suicide from looking so grotesque, they gave it a label: death with dignity. Dr. Stevens responded by informing listeners that verbal engineering always precedes social engineering. We see this from the organization once named The Hemlock Society. Obviously having a name derived from a poison wasn’t very marketable so now they call themselves Compassion and Choices.
Dr. Stevens summarized this program very well when he explained that doctor assisted suicide isn’t about giving patients the right to die, it’s about giving doctors the right to kill. It’s an attempt to wrap the respectability of healthcare around an idea that we’ve looked on with disfavor in our culture ever since this nation was formed.
Dr. Stevens believes compassion is not a handful of lethal pills. Compassion involves coming alongside someone and helping them bear their burden. Doctor assisted suicide is an escape from compassion for those who are around the patient.
More Information
The Christian Medical & Dental Association website: www.cmda.org
