Category: News Releases

Protection of Conscience Project supports Ontario Medical Association appeal

News Release

Protection of Conscience Project

The Protection of Conscience Project has written to the Canadian Senate’s Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in support the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), a professional association representing over 31,000 practising Ontario physicians. The OMA has asked the committee to add a protection of conscience amendment to Bill C-7, a euthanasia/assisted suicide bill now before the Canadian Senate.

The current and previous Liberal governments have repeatedly rejected efforts to include such protection for health care practitioners in relation to what the law calls medical assistance in dying (MAiD). A favoured (and correct) response from the government and its supporters is that protection of conscience legislation falls within provincial jurisdiction, so it is not possible to include it in the Criminal Code.

However, that is not the end of the matter.

“Bill C-7 is an exercise of the federal government’s absolute constitutional jurisdiction in criminal law because medical assistance in dying is (non-culpable) homicide and assisted suicide,” wrote the Project Administrator.

“Within that context, Bill C-7 can be amended to protect freedom of conscience without intruding upon provincial jurisdiction. Just as female genital mutilation has been made a crime, Bill C-7 can be amended to make it a criminal offence to force people to become parties to homicide and suicide.”

With the letter was the Project’s submission on this point to a House of Commons standing committee in the fall of 2020.

Contact: Sean Murphy, Administrator
Protection of Conscience Project
email: protection@consciencelaws.org

Court blocks mandate forcing doctors to perform controversial gender transition procedures

Federal court upholds conscience rights for doctors and protects welfare of patients

News Release

Becket Law

WASHINGTON – A federal court in North Dakota just blocked a requirement known as the Transgender Mandate that would force medical professionals and religious hospitals to perform gender transition procedures on their patients—including children—even when the procedures are potentially harmful. In Religious Sisters of Mercy v. Azar, an order of Catholic nuns, a Catholic university, and Catholic healthcare organizations sued the federal government challenging a provision of the Affordable Care Act that would have forced doctors to perform gender transition procedures even if doing so would violate their religious beliefs and medical judgment. Becket represented the plaintiffs, arguing that sensitive medical decisions should be kept between patients and their doctors without government interference, and that no one should be required by law to disregard their conscience or their professional medical judgment.

“Now more than ever, Americans are grateful for the sacrifices of our medical professionals who serve on the front lines and use their training and expertise to serve the vulnerable,” said Luke Goodrich, senior counsel at Becket. “The court’s decision recognizes our medical heroes’ right to practice medicine in line with their conscience and without politically motivated interference from government bureaucrats.”

In 2016, the federal government issued a mandate, applicable to nearly every doctor in the country, interpreting the Affordable Care Act to require them to perform gender transition procedures on any patient, including children, even if the doctor believed the procedure could harm the patient. Doctors who refused to violate their medical judgment would have faced severe consequences, including financial penalties and private lawsuits. Immediately, religious organizations and states sued, challenging the legality of the mandate in multiple courts. In 2016, a federal court in North Dakota put the rule on hold, and in 2019 another federal court in Texas struck it down. In June 2020, HHS passed a new rule aimed at walking back the requirement, but other courts have blocked that new rule. Today’s ruling is the second ruling from a federal court blocking the Transgender Mandate. The ruling protects patients, aligns with current medical research, and ensures doctors aren’t forced to violate their religious beliefs and medical judgment.

“These religious doctors and hospitals provide top-notch medical care to all patients for everything from cancer to the common cold,” said Goodrich. “All they’re asking is that they be allowed to continue serving their patients as they’ve done for decades, without being forced to perform controversial, medically unsupported procedures that are against their religious beliefs and potentially harmful to their patients. The Constitution and federal law require no less.”

Contact: Ryan Colby 202-349-7219 media@becketlaw.org

Delta Hospice Society – Layoffs and Eviction

News Release

Delta Hospice Society

Members of the media are urged to view the attached video that explains why the Delta Hospice Society has been forced to issue layoff notices to all clinical staff prior to our role concluding inside our Hospice effective Feb. 25, 2021. 

The board of DHS deeply regrets being compelled to take this action. Tragically, as the video and the attached background document make clear, we have been left no other choice due to the Fraser Health Authority canceling our service agreement and 35-year lease. Fraser Health is about to evict us and expropriate approximately $15 million of our assets simply because we decline to euthanize our patients at our 10-bed Irene Thomas Hospice in Ladner, B.C.

To be clear, we accept that the provision of MAiD is an elective, legal service across Canada. Nothing in Canadian law, however, requires medically assisted death to be made available everywhere, at all times, to everyone. The Constitution of our private Society and our commitment to palliative care, bars us from offering it. Neither the board of the DHS, nor the vast majority of our patients and members want to change that.

“This is not a debate about MAiD,” says board President Angelina Ireland. “A person who wants MAiD can have it at the hospital right next door to us. This is about the B.C. government destroying a sanctuary for dying patients who want the choice to stay in a palliative care facility where MAiD is not offered. They now find their rights to equal choice being revoked. They are being disenfranchised by the very system they pay for.”

Ireland notes the DHS has been so committed to protecting the right to a sanctuary for the dying that it offered to forego $750,000 in public funding last February in order to operate as an authentic palliative care centre. The Fraser Health Authority rejected the proposal without negotiation. Instead, it served DHS with a one-year notice of eviction with the intent to expropriate its assets.

“The Society has done all it can to have discussions with Fraser Health about the conflict with its Constitution. It has done all it can to follow its service agreement and required legislation. Fraser Health has made no attempt to understand the 30-year relationship with the Society, which has always been recognized for its exemplary care,” says founder and former Executive Director Nancy Macey.

Journalists and the Canadian public at large are urged to recognize where that approach has led: working notice slips for dedicated palliative care employees, and the destruction of a sanctuary for the dying. The Society is dedicated to the future of palliative care and is continuing with its supportive care services such as: bereavement counseling, vigils, spiritual care, volunteer coordination, education, social work and the many other ways it provides care directly to the community.

To arrange interviews, please contact:

Angelina Ireland, President Delta Hospice Society Board,
778-512-8088
irelandangelina@gmail.com

NJ Legislature Considering ‘Reproductive Freedom Act’

Strips Medical Workers of ‘Conscience Protection,’ Legalizes Infanticide of Born-Alive Children

News Release

Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr.,

MEDIA ADVISORY, Dec. 1, 2020 /Standard Newswire/ — “Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.” – Martin Luther King

A coalition of pro-life groups and concerned activists are holding a “Day of Outrage” protest at the offices of legislators sponsoring the “Reproductive Freedom Act.” This bill removes the “conscience clause,” meaning healthcare workers must assist in abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy. It gives impunity to those who would kill a child born alive.

“The Reproductive Freedom Act is a human trafficker’s best friend,” said Rev. Greg Quinlan for Garden State Families. Quinlan stated, “The Reproductive Freedom Act will allow anyone, of any age, regardless of their residency, to receive an abortion at the expense of New Jersey taxpayers. New Jersey taxpayers will be paying for abortions for women victimized by Human Traffickers.”

“This outrageous bill strips babies of their right to live, strips women of their right to safe healthcare, strips NJ healthcare workers and taxpayers of their rights of conscience not to participate in abortion, and even disenfranchises citizens from being able to rescind it in the future. This anti-freedom bill must be stopped in its tracks,” said Christine Flaherty, Executive Director, LIFENET.

The Working Together coalition has been designed to educate the public on the details of the bill and how this bill will detrimentally affect women. New Jersey will be joining California and New York in not requiring an abortionist to be a licensed medical doctor.

Shawn Hyland, director of advocacy for the Family Policy Alliance of New Jersey, said, “This unsafe bill threatens women’s health, jeopardizes children’s safety and criminalizes medical health professionals.”

Gwen Schwarzwalder, an activist with South Jersey Pro-Life Coalition, quoted from Albert Einstein,  “Never surrender conscience even if the state demands it.”

“The Reproductive Freedom Act shamefully disregards advances in prenatal medicine. Instead, it seeks to dehumanize and deprive babies in the womb of their life and dignity. It consigns them to inhumane procedures that would not be tolerated if done to a cat or a dog” said Marie Tasy, executive director, New Jersey Right To Life.

Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr., founder of BlackGenocide.org, stated, “This change will further endanger women’s health and put their lives at risk. This lowering of care for disproportionately African American women is typical of the callous abortion industry. Abortion is the most performed surgery on women. No doctors?”

The coalition will have another “Day of Outrage” that will span over three counties, Wednesday, December 2, starting at these NJ legislative offices

10 a.m. – Assemblywoman Mila Jasey, 511 Valley St., Maplewood (Essex County

1 p.m. – Assemblyman Vincent Mazzeo, 2312 New Rd., Northfield (Atlantic County

2 p.m. – Senator Vin Gopal, 35 West Main St., Freehold (Monmouth County

The Pro-life coalition is a promoter of Prayerful and Peaceful protest. The civil rights of all our citizens is a chief priority of the coalition.

S-3030/A-4848

SOURCE Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr.

CONTACT: Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr., 201-704-9325; 

John Tomicki, League of American Families, 201-725-2154

Canadian parliament asked to prohibit coercion in euthanasia

Protection of Conscience Project proposes amendment to euthanasia/assisted suicide bill

News Release

Protection of Conscience Project

The Protection of Conscience Project is asking the Parliament of Canada to make it a crime to force people to become parties to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The Project has proposed an amendment to Bill C-7, a pending euthanasia/assisted suicide bill. The amendment would establish that, as a matter of law and national public policy, no one can be compelled to become a party to homicide or suicide, or punished or disadvantaged for refusing to do so.

The proposed amendment would not prevent the provision of euthanasia or assisted suicide by willing practitioners, nor rational arguments aimed at persuading practitioners to participate, nor the offer of incentives to encourage participation. However, it would prevent state institutions or anyone else from attempting to force unwilling citizens to be parties to killing someone or aiding in suicide.

The need for the amendment is demonstrated by policies in Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Manitoba that compel health care workers to become parties to inflicting death upon patients. Further, Bill C-7 will increase demands that they participate in euthanasia and assisted suicide in increasingly controversial cases, since it will formally legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide for people who are disabled but not dying, and for those who lose the capacity to consent after having arranged for the procedures but before they have been provided.

Parliament has used its criminal law power to prohibit procedures that might be asked of health care workers, like female genital mutilation, and the government plans to prohibit some forms of “conversion therapy.”

“It is clear that the federal government can make it a crime to force people to become parties to homicide and suicide,” said Sean Murphy, Administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project.

“The Project hopes that Liberal, Conservative, Bloc, Green and Independent parliamentarians can agree that,whatever one might think about euthanasia and assisted suicide, it is unacceptable to compel unwilling Canadians to become parties to killing other people.”

Contact: Sean Murphy, Administrator
Protection of Conscience Project
protection@consciencelaws.org