Category: Euthanasia

Good News and Bad News

Presentation to the Catholic Physicians’ Guild of Vancouver

North Vancouver B.C.

Sean Murphy *

Introduction

Thank you for inviting me to speak this evening. I have never been asked to give a three hour presentation to a group of physicians. You will be relieved to know that I have not been asked to do that tonight.

Those of you who saw the BC Catholic headline may have been expecting a “lecture on medical ethics,” but, thanks to Dr. Bright’s introduction, you now know that I am an administrator, not an ethicist, and that my topic is freedom of conscience in health care.

Protection of Conscience Project

The Protection of Conscience Project will be 15 years old this December. Although a meeting sponsored by the Catholic Physicians Guild provided the impetus for its formation, the Project is a non-denominational initiative, not a Catholic enterprise. Thus, if I mention the Catholic Church or Catholic teaching tonight, it will be as an outsider, as it were, though an outsider with inside information.

One more thing: the Project does not take a position on the acceptability of morally contested procedures like abortion, contraception or euthanasia: not even on torture. The focus is exclusively on freedom of conscience.

Context

Supreme Court of Canada, OttawaThe context for my presentation is provided by the passage of the Quebec euthanasia law1 and the pending decision in Carter v. Canada in the Supreme Court.2 Physicians are now confronted by the prospect that laws against euthanasia and physician assisted suicide will be struck down or changed. If that happens, what does the future hold for Catholic physicians and others who share your beliefs?

Will you be forced to participate in suicide or euthanasia?

If you refuse, will you be disadvantaged, discriminated against, disciplined, sued or fired?

Will you be forced out of your specialty or profession, or forced to emigrate if you wish to continue in it?

What about those who come after you? If you avoid all of these difficulties, will they?

In sum, will freedom of conscience and religion for health care workers be protected if assisted suicide and euthanasia are legalized? [Full Text]

Euthanasia in the Netherlands is getting out of hand: ethicist who screened over 4,000 euthanasia cases

 LifeSite News

Jeanne Smits

A prominent professor of ethics who was once part of the Netherlands’ euthanasia bureaucracy has again voiced his qualms over the present interpretation and use of the Dutch euthanasia law in a lengthy interview published last week by the Protestant daily, Trouw.

Prof. Theo Boer is worried that current trends in the Netherlands are trivializing euthanasia to an extent that many who fought for legalization of “mercy killing” in the 1990s now privately express their opinion that it has gone too far. And it will be hard to turn back the clock, he acknowledges.

Theo Boer does not oppose euthanasia: on the contrary, he served as an ethicist for nine years on one of the five regional control commissions that monitor all cases of declared euthanasia in the Netherlands. He stepped down last September. [Full text]

Proposed Australian euthanasia bill may return in 2015

Medical Services (Dying with Dignity) Exposure Draft Bill 2014

The six member Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Australian Senate has issued a report recommending that Greens senator Richard di Natale reflect and consult further with experts concerning his euthanasia and assisted suicide bill.  The Committee also recommended that, if a revised bill is formally introduced, senators should be allowed a “conscience vote” on it. The bill has some provisions that provide some protection for objecting physicians, but they are problematic in some respects.

When is a problem not a problem?

Refusing to dispense drugs to kill patients with psychiatric illness

Levenseinde Kliniek complains about uncooperative Dutch pharmacists

Sean Murphy*

When is a problem not a problem?In April, 2014, a complaint was made in the Netherlands that some Dutch pharmacists were refusing to provide euthanasia drugs.  The complaint led members of the Dutch Parliament from the green party, GroenLinks, to ask for a debate with health minister, and members of other Dutch political parties let it be known that they were also concerned.

 According to the news reports, over half the physicians at “the independent euthanasia clinic” had been refused lethal drugs, and 23 percent of 53 pharmacists surveyed reported that they sometimes refused to fill euthanasia prescriptions.  It was argued that pharmacists should not be able to refuse drugs needed to kill patients if two physicians had approved the euthanasia request.  However, while the law in the Netherlands permits physicians to provide euthanasia, it does not mention pharmacists. [Full Text]

Assisted dying: When what if becomes what is

Calgary Herald

Peter Stockland

If tone and body language are at all reliable indicators, within the coming year, Canada’s Supreme Court will strike down current laws against assisted suicide.

The justices hearing the Carter case on Oct. 15 gave no visual or audible signs of sympathy to the federal government’s argument that the laws ruled constitutional in the 1993 Rodriguez case should still be deemed constitutional 20 years later.

By contrast, those on the bench appeared eagerly engaged by the position of opposing counsel that Criminal Code prohibitions against counselling suicide and assisting suicide violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justice Rosalie Abella were particularly active in querying the “blanket prohibition” of the current law, and its contribution to the “suffering” of those who want help to kill themselves.

All those who assert with certainty how any of this will translate are, of course, themselves unreliable. No one outside of the court itself will know before we all do. But the tableau last week at least gave credibility to the “what ifs” of Canada suddenly opening the legal door to assisted suicide. . . [Full text]