Caring for Vulnerable Patients Until Natural Death
Caring for Vulnerable Patients Until Natural Death
POSITION STATEMENT
American College of Pediatricians | December 2025
Caring for Vulnerable Patients Until Natural Death
The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) supports the care and protection of human individuals from the moment of fertilization, when membranes of sperm and ovum unite, until natural death. ACPeds also recognizes that the intentional killing of human life is not healthcare. The taking of a human life violates the dignity of patients and is always unethical. It is the role of physicians to care for all patients with compassion utilizing the best available medical treatments, including for those patients in the earliest days and weeks of life, those with life-limiting diagnoses, those who are terminally ill, and those with developmental and health limitations. ACPeds calls upon the medical profession in the United States to reject the use of human embryos for experimentation or in ways that intentionally result in their death, and opposes the creation of zygotes as commodities to be destroyed or disposed of if they do not meet the desires of adults. ACPeds opposes discrimination against the medically fragile or handicapped through medical neglect or medically-accelerated death (i.e. euthanasia or assisted suicide). Physicians must return to their pro-life Hippocratic roots to uphold the ancient medical ethics’ principle of “First, do no harm.”
Pertinent ACPeds Papers:
Induced Abortion: Risks That May Impact Adolescents, Young Adults, and Their Children
Emergency Contraception: Not the Best for Adolescents
The Science and Ethics of Stem Cells: A Bright Future
Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in Pediatrics
American College of Pediatricians © 2025 | acpeds.org
