Category: News Releases

Conscientious objection: a good for humanity

News Release

Bratislava

Consilium Conferentiarum Episcoporum Europae (CCEE)

While in Europe, strongly marked by secularism and liberalism, there is an increasing tendency to multiply the rights of individuals, especially at the beginning and end of life, proportionally,  freedom of conscience – a fundamental right at the foundation of democracy and the Rule of law of our European countries – is increasingly struggling, especially in the medical and educational field. On the contrary conscientious objection is not used against anyone or to undermine the legal system but for the common good. In Bratislava, the legal advisers of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe talked about the real applicability of conscientious objection in the light of the current debate in European States and the consequences-challenges to church institutions.

The meeting was held from 4th to 6th of March in Bratislava, Slovakia. This was the second meeting of legal advisers, organized by the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE). The first one was held in Strasbourg in 2013. Representatives of the Holy See, England, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Croatia, France, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine attended the conference. The meeting was hosted by Msgr. Stanislav Zvolensky, Archbishop of Bratislava and President of the Slovak Bishops’ Conference, who opened the conference. Msgr. Mario Giordana, Apostolic Nuncio in Slovakia and Jan Figel, currently Vice President of the Slovak Parliament, greeted the participants during the meeting.

The main address was given by Prof. Marek Šmid, Rector of the University of Trnava (Slovakia) who focused on the legal regulation of conscientious objection. There is a diversity of situations in the states of Europe. The common element of their legal systems is the fact that the regulation of conscientious objection has an important impact in a number ethically sensitive areas.

In the case of members of the Catholic Church, conscientious objection should be instituted as a legal possibility that gives people the right to refuse duty, which is contrary to the general principles of doctrine and morals of the Church. This does not mean the right to disregard the laws of the country, but to enable the individual to comply with the laws of the State and avoid compromising their conscience at the same time.

Conscientious objection is in the interests of the individual and of the state which aims to be pluralistic, democratic and respectful of the rule of law. It enables citizens to enjoy the right to freedom of conscience and religion, which is one of the core values ​​of  society. In particular the effects of conscientious objection should extend to the inviolability of human life from conception to natural death and also related health services. Its effects should also extend to the field of teaching on sexual morality in public school, marriage as a life community of one man and one woman and the exercise of freedom of religion in public life, particularly through the use of religious symbols.

In health care the right to conscientious objection doesn’t belong only to doctors but also to other professional personnel (eg. nurses, psychologists, social workers). In particular, it must be possible in the following procedures: abortion, euthanasia, artificial insemination, research and organ transplants, as has been shown by Prof. Eva Grey, of St. Elisabeth University of Health and Social Work (Bratislava). However, conscientious objection may not outweigh the duty of medical personnel to protect or save human lives.

Other fundamental points underlined during the meeting were:

  • the fact that nowadays a new dimension of conscientious objection arises with respect to aggressive promotion of gender ideology through education and antidiscrimination legislation;
  • the need to bear in mind the role of ethics code in healthcare;
  • the need to promote the institutional aspects of conscientious objection: not just individuals but also institutions (hospitals, schools) should be allowed to object;
  • the role of families in creating conditions for conscientious objection;
  • and finally, the fact that Freedom of conscience inevitably provides awareness and recognition of the fundamental values ​​of society and of individuals. The States together with the civil societies, Churches and religious communities should cooperate in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity. This principle is particularly promoted by the social teaching of the Catholic Church.

On the afternoon of Thursday 5 March participants moved to Vienna. There, they visited the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). Then, they were introduced to the challenges for Church organisations in the current discussion on development of antidiscrimination laws by Ms Gudrun Kugler, President of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe.  In the Austrian Capital they also met with Mgr. Janusz Urbańczyk and Mgr. Marinko Antolović from the Holy See’s Permanent Mission at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Through a video recorded address from Judge Marta Cartabia, Vice President of the Italian Constitutional Court, participants were also introduced to the theme of freedom of expression. The Church strongly defend this fundamental right being aware, however, that nowadays freedom of expression, especially when it concerns the religious dimension of people, might need a reasonable accommodation between the State and religious communities. In case of conflict, experiences show that a better regulation of this right is reached where a Concordat – Agreement between the State and the Church has been established. Bilateral Agreement, in fact, remains the more reasonable solution in a pluralistic society preserving this pluralism without provoking the annulment of the differences or creating homologation.

In Bratislava, participants took also note on the recent redefinition of marriage in Slovenia and supported together with Slovenians bishops the efforts of civil society to overrule the complete assimilation of same-sex unions with the different-sex ones by the people in a referendum.

The final session saw a reflection followed by a dialogue with Msgr. Paul Gallagher, Secretary for the Relations with States (Holy See’s Secretariat of State) on The challenges for today’s Church in Pope Francis’ addresses to the European Parliament and the Council of Europe. Msgr. Gallagher stressed Pope Francis’ reflection on the need that we should rebuild “a Europe which contemplates the heavens and pursues lofty ideals”.

At the end of the meeting José Jesus López Nieto, legal adviser of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, presented the conclusion of a short questionnaire that CCEE disseminated earlier this year. According to the responses received, it is important that CCEE fosters this network of Legal Advisers and to engage more with the specific invitation that Pope Francis has addressed to CCEE in Stasbourg to follow more deeply the activities of the Council of Europe, with the help of the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the Council of Europe, represented during the meeting by Mgr. Paolo Rudelli, its Permanent Observer.

CPSS undermines, Supreme Court of Canada affirms conscience rights for Saskatchewan doctors

News Release

Christian Medical Dental Society of Canada

SASKATOON, March 6, 2015 /CNW/ – Several Saskatchewan physicians, including Dr. Amos Akinbiyi, Dr. Philip Fitzpatrick, and Dr. Randy Friesen, released a letter and legal brief (see below), today, describing how the conscience rights of Saskatchewan doctors are undermined by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan (CPSS) draft policy on requirements for physicians and surgeons and upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision on assisted suicide in Carter, et al.

Said Dr. Philip Fitzpatrick, “In the recent Carter decision from the Supreme Court, they made explicit reference to conscience rights, and that physicians could not be forced to participate in an abortion or euthanasia. But the CPSS’s draft policy would require me to make a formal referral to another physician where my conscience would not permit me to do those procedures, and could require me to do it myself.”

The letter and brief (see below) were initiated by physicians who are members of the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada (CMDS) and the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Societies (CFCPS).

CPSS is circulating a draft policy that would require physicians and surgeons to make a formal referral of patients to a physician or surgeon who would be willing to perform the legally permissible and publicly funded health services, irrespective of conscience rights. If another physician were not available to perform the service, the physician would be required to provide the service, whether or not performing the service conflicted with conscience.

“The CPSS seems to be creating conflicts between medical doctors’ conscience rights and patient care unnecessarily. No doctors concerned about conscience rights would put their patients’ health and well-being in jeopardy. I find that patients are very appreciative of my concern for their health and of my outlining all the options and alternatives for treatment,” said Dr. Friesen.

In their letter to CPSS and the accompanying legal brief, the Saskatchewan doctors outlined their concerns with the draft policy and how a few amendments to it would provide the conscience rights protections upheld by the Court.

“Saskatchewan is a dynamic province with a growing population. Saskatchewan needs physicians, especially General Practitioners. GPs would be most affected by the CPSS policy. Our province will have a hard time keeping and recruiting GPs to serve communities where they would be required by the policy as now drafted to make care decisions they believe will harm patients,” added Dr. Akinbiyi.

CMDS represents more than 1600 physicians, surgeons and dentists across Canada and CFCPS is a national association of Catholic physicians’ guilds, associations and societies from eleven cities across Canada.

Letter: http://goo.gl/nKi6JN and the Legal Brief: http://goo.gl/Nf3Bp7.

SOURCE Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada

For further information: Larry Worthen, (902) 880-2495

Uniform coercive policy urged for all Canadian physicians

Project submission to the Saskatchewan College of Physicians discloses details

News Release

Protection of Conscience Project

The Protection of Conscience Project has charged that a controversial policy proposed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan is unjustified.

The policy, Conscientious Refusal, will require all Saskatchewan physicians who object to a procedure for reasons of conscience to facilitate the procedure by referring patients to a colleague who will provide it, even if it is homicide or suicide.

The Project noted that the burden of proof was on the policy’s supporters to prove that the policy is justified and that no less oppressive alternatives are available.  “They failed to do so,” states the submission. “The policy should be withdrawn.”

“Conscientious Refusal fails to recognize that the practice of medicine is a moral enterprise, that morality is a human enterprise, and that physicians, no less than patients, are moral agents” said the Project, describing the policy as “profoundly disrespectful of the moral agency of physicians.”

Using documents provided by the College, the Project’s submission traces the origin of the policy to a meeting in 2013. The meeting was apparently convened by the Conscience Research Group (CRG), activist academics whose goal is to compel physicians unwilling to provide morally contested procedures like abortion or euthanasia to refer patients to someone willing to do so. They presented a coercive model policy that had been drafted to achieve that goal.

According to a CPSS memo, College attendees included Saskatchewan Associate Registrar Bryan Salte, Dr. Gus Grant, Registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia, Andréa Foti of the Policy Department of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and a representative of the Collège des Médecins du Québec. They agreed upon a text virtually identical to the CRG model.

In May, 2014, Bryan Salte proposed the policy to Registrars of the Colleges of British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario, who, he reported, agreed to review it and consider implementing it. He later urged all of the Registrars of Colleges of Physicians in Canada to adopt the coercive policy or one very like it, noting that “physician assisted suicide, in particular” would be present a challenge for administrators.

“Any College that is an outlier, either because it has adopted a different position than other Colleges, or because it has not developed a policy, will potentially be placed in a difficult position,” he warned.

The CPSS memo discloses that, unbeknownst to physicians, officials in several provinces have been making plans behind closed doors to suppress freedom of conscience in the medical profession.

“One of the disturbing aspects of the story,” notes the submission, “is what appears to be a pattern of concealment, selective disclosure, and false or misleading statements that all serve the purpose of supporting the policy.”

The Project’s most recent submission to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario identifies a similarly troubling pattern, describing briefing materials supplied to College Council in support of its controversial policy as “not only seriously deficient, but erroneous and seriously misleading.”

Project Submission to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan (2015)

Project Submission to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (2015)

Supreme Court of Canada orders legalization of physician assisted suicide – AND euthanasia

Physicians unwilling to kill already face demands that they find someone who will

Protection of Conscience Project News Release

In a 9-0 ruling the Supreme Court of Canada struck down two sections of Canada’s Criminal Code “insofar as they prohibit physician-assisted death” in circumstances outlined by the Court. It appears that most or all of the major media outlets understood this to mean that the Court had legalized physician assisted suicide.

In fact, the Court has authorized physicians not only to help eligible patients commit suicide, but to kill them – whether or not they are capable of suicide. The ruling permits both physician assisted suicide and physician administered euthanasia in the case of competent adults  who have clearly consented to being killed, and who have a grievous irremediable medical condition “including an illness, disease or disability” that causes “enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual.”

The Court limited its ruling to the facts of the Carter case, but offered no opinion “on other situations” where physicians might be asked to kill patients or help them commit suicide. It is highly likely that the parameters set by the Court in Carter will be expanded in federal or provincial laws or in later litigation. It would certainly be a serious mistake to presume that the goalposts set in Carter will not be moved.

Even where euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal, most physicians are unwilling to do what the Supreme Court of Canada now expects Canadian physicians to do: lethally inject patients and write prescriptions for lethal medications.

However, acknowledging the joint intervention of the Protection of Conscience Project, Catholic Civil Rights League and Faith and Freedom Alliance and submissions by others, including the Canadian Medical Association, the Court stated: “In our view, nothing in the declaration of invalidity which we propose to issue would compel physicians to provide assistance in dying.”

The judges noted that “a physician’s decision to participate in assisted dying is a matter of conscience and, in some cases, of religious belief,” and that “the Charter rights of patients and physicians will need to be reconciled.”

Unfortunately, euthanasia activists understand “reconciliation” to mean that physicians unwilling to kill patients or help them kill themselves should be forced to refer them to a colleague willing to do so. This is the view of Dr. James Downar, a Toronto palliative care physician, who told the Canadian Medical Association Journal that it is critical to ensure all Canadians have access to “physician assisted dying.”

Commenting on the remarks attributed to Dr. Downar, Protection of Conscience Project Administrator Sean Murphy noted that many other palliative care physicians were concerned about ensuring access to palliative care, not finding physicians willing to kill patients.

“They certainly aren’t inclined to force colleagues to participate in assisted suicide and euthanasia,” he said. “Quite the contrary: many would refuse to direct patients to physicians willing to kill them or help them commit suicide.”

“Carter is not the last word on the euthanasia, assisted suicide and freedom of conscience,” he added, “but only the first of many to come.”

For details, see Supreme Court of Canada orders legalization of physician assisted suicide – AND euthanasia

A watchdog in need of a leash

Ontario College of Physicians manipulates consultation process

New Release

For immediate release

Protection of Conscience Project

It appears that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is manipulating its consultation process to support a controversial draft policy intended to force doctors to do what they believe to be wrong.

The College is intervening in a Discussion Forum about Professional Obligations and Human Rights (POHR), apparently to discredit critics and defend the policy. The Forum is supposed to be used by the public to provide feedback on the policy, and to post emails and written submissions the College receives from the public.

But on 29 January the College posted a comment accusing Professor Margaret Somerville of misrepresenting its policy in a National Post column. The comment included a link to a letter to the National Post from College President, Dr. Carol Leet.

Not content with interfering in the consultation by posting its own statement, the College impersonated anonymous forum participants and used its statement to reply to comments supporting Professor Somerville’s “modest proposal.”

Someone at the College seems to have had second thoughts about impersonating participants, because the replies were revised a couple of days later to identify the College as the author. But the purported correction of participant responses still violates College policy.

Sean Murphy, Administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project, thinks College officials are interfering in the consultation because they are afraid that more people will begin to realize what the draft policy really means.

“In her National Post column, Professor Somerville succinctly critiqued the draft policy, and offered a reasonable alternative,” he said. “If Dr. Leet disagreed, she was within her rights to write a letter to the editor.”

“But,” he added, “interfering in the consultation process is unacceptable.”

Murphy observed that the College is supposed to be the watchdog protecting the public and profession from unethical conduct.

“It seems this watchdog needs a leash.”

For details, see A watchdog in need of a leash: Ontario College of Physicians manipulates consultation process