Dr. Mark Komrad:

To put it in the simplest possible terms, the most prominent, thoughtful and deeply reflective leading professional medical organisations have felt this is not consistent with the ethical practice of medicine. Second is the fact that, as a public policy and philosophically, something we worry about in psychiatry and which legislators have been thoughtful about is making two tiers of suicide: the suicide you should provide and the suicide you should prevent. We do not have in professional psychiatry any clear ability to distinguish those two. There is a tremendous influence that derives from carving out a section of suicide that is not just allowable but in certain set cases desirable and even romanticised. It has a contagion affect on public health attempts to prevent suicide. We have data to support that.