The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7437 p133
3 February 2007

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Letters to the Editor

Ethics

The Society should object to physician-assisted suicide

From Mr M. J. Donaghy, MRPharmS

Simon Lewis and Jeanette Payne write (PJ, 27 January, p107 and p108) that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society should promote a conscience clause to protect those pharmacists who do not wish to dispense medicines for physician-assisted suicide. Commendable as this is, surely the Society should also be taking a more fundamental ethical standpoint. A pharmacist’s prime ethical concern is for the welfare of his or her patients. The new Code of Ethics should elaborate on this and explicitly state that a pharmacist must not participate in the supply of drugs which are intentionally to harm or kill a person.

If, in the future, Parliament does allow physician-assisted suicide then that should not compel pharmacists to be involved. If the nursing and medical professions decide to participate then that is a decision for their members to make. Despite our close relationship and inter-dependence upon other health care professionals we should be prepared to stand up as an independent profession and state our objection to our members’ involvement in intentionally killing patients, whatever the circumstances.

If pharmacists participate in supplying medicines to kill patients, that will not only overturn the underlying ethical principle of our profession but will damage the relationship and the trust that the public have in us to provide pharmaceutical care when they are most vulnerable.

Major health care policy often appears to be decided by others, with pharmacists having little influence. In this debate, the Society should make a clear policy decision to make a political stand stating that pharmacists, as the guardians of the nation’s medicines, object to the use of pharmaceuticals for intentionally killing patients.

Mark Donaghy
Crowborough, East Sussex

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