Vermont has legalized assisted suicide, and hospitals in the state are delaying implementation on premises. From the AP story:
Vermont’s new aid-in-dying law, which allows doctors to prescribe lethal medication to terminally ill patients who request it, is set to take effect as soon as Gov. Peter Shumlin signs it on Monday. But most Vermont hospitals are expected, at least for the time being, to opt out of implementing it. Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. Olson said her group is advising hospitals to take their time to develop policies for how to handle aid-in-dying on their properties and among their medical staffs. “There’s a lot of work to do to get ready to do it,” she said.
Actually, they should establish a fixed policy quickly: Never in our hospital! That’s worked in Washington, for example, where some declared policies of non cooperation.
More: Since the odious law allows hospitals, nursing homes, doctors etc., to refuse participation, they should do just that. Indeed, rather than help kill, doctors and hospitals should post copies of the Hippocratic Oath in their waiting rooms and publicly declare their practice or facility to be an “assisted suicide free zone.” It would set a great public example by proclaiming loudly that killing is not medicine. And it would reduce the number of assisted suicides.