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Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, the Senate concurring:SECTION 1. That the Indiana General Assembly strongly opposes and condemns assisted medical suicide because the Indiana General Assembly has an unqualified interest in the preservation of human life.
SECTION 2. That the Indiana General Assembly strongly opposes and condemns assisted medical suicide because anything less than a prohibition leads to foreseeable abuses and eventually to euthanasia by devaluing human life, particularly the lives of the terminally ill, elderly, disabled, and depressed whose lives are of no less value or quality than any other citizen of this state.
SECTION 3. That the Indiana General Assembly strongly opposes and condemns assisted medical suicide even for terminally ill, mentally competent adults because assisted suicide undermines efforts to prevent the self-destructive act of suicide and hinders progress in effective health care provider interventions, including diagnosing and treating depression, managing pain, and providing palliative and hospice care.
SECTION 4. That the Indiana General Assembly strongly opposes and condemns assisted medical suicide because assisted suicide undermines the integrity and ethics of the medical profession, subverts a health care provider's role as healer, and compromises the patient-provider relationship. For these reasons and others, the medical community summarily rejects it.
SECTION 5. That the Principal Clerk of the House of Representatives shall transmit copies of this resolution to the Governor, the Indiana Department of Health, the Indiana Medical Association, and the Indiana Department of Nursing.