KevinMD October 20, 2024
A million vulnerable patients have died in the last decade, and while I have no doubt the rate of overdose and poisoning will drop nationwide—killing a million vulnerable patients has that effect eventually—I choose not to contribute to that death rate. This decision is in accordance with my deeply held beliefs. In 2014, Governor Asa Hutchinson signed the Arkansas Conscience Protection Act into law, supposedly protecting health care professionals who refuse to participate in treatments or actions they find morally or ethically unacceptable. This law exists so that doctors have some legal protection if they choose not to engage in acts or treatments they believe violate their deeply held beliefs. In March 2021, the same governor reaffirmed this commitment by...