Attitudes of medical professionals toward euthanasia

This is a pilot study of the attitudes of health care professionals toward euthanasia, and how those attitudes are affected by religion, previous experience in withdrawing care, and years in the health care profession. The data are drawn from a sample of 63 oncology professionals in the Midwest. The findings suggest that Protestants tend to support euthanasia more than Catholics; those with high religious commitments tend to disagree based on professional norms; agreement with euthanasia is inversely related to years in the profession; and those with previous experience tend to disagree with euthanasia based on legal/self-interest reasons. However, further research with larger cross-cultural samples is needed to confirm these findings.