Public prostitution, freely available marijuana, conventional same-sex marriage—yet the Netherlands is, perhaps, best known around the world for pioneering physician-assisted death. Outside of the country, its reputation is easily misconceived and sometimes blown out of proportion. For example, in 2012 the Dutch were astonished to hear this assertion of former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum . . . Full Text
Category: Euthanasia
Vancouver bishop speaks out on conscience rights, end-of-life care
LifeSite News
VANCOUVER, August 22, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Michael Miller has reaffirmed that health care practitioners cannot be “pressured or coerced” into providing assisted suicide or euthanasia, which are now legal in Canada under Bill C-14, passed June 17.
In an August 11 letter to all hospitals and Catholic health care institutions in his diocese of approximately 430,000 Catholics, Miller stated that the “conscience of caregivers, physicians, nurses, and support staff must always be respected” and health care professionals should not be discriminated against for refusing to kill their patients by medical means or refusing to provide a “direct effective referral.”
“We maintain as a fundamental principle that any action or omission which of itself or by intention causes or hastens death is a grave violation of the commandment: ‘You shall not kill’,” he wrote. . . [Full text]
Christian doctors’ group calls referring patients for assisted death ‘morally the same’
Christian Medical and Dental Society prefers ‘total transfer of care’ to other doctors in such cases
CBC News
The head of the Christian doctors’ group that met recently with Manitoba’s health minister says doctors with religious or moral objections to physician-assisted dying should not be forced to issue referrals to patients but instead allow patients to switch doctors altogether.
The Christian Medical and Dental Society met with Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen on July 11 to lobby for conscience protection for doctors who object to physician-assisted death.
The group is also asking Ontario’s top court to reverse a provincial government policy requiring physicians to refer patients who want an assisted death to another doctor. . . [Full text]
MUHC’s assisted death policy repealed: Barrette
Montreal Gazette
QUEBEC — The McGill University Health Centre has repealed its policy exempting the palliative care unit from offering medical aid to die, said Health Minister Gaétan Barrette on Wednesday.
“This morning, I met with Mr. (Normand) Rinfret and he told me that as of this very moment, the policy has been repealed,” Barrette said, referring to the MUHC’s executive director. “As we speak today, no patient can be transferred out of the palliative care unit at the MUHC, and medical aid in dying will be made available in the unit itself.” . . . [Full text]
Barrette chastises MUHC over policy not to provide medically assisted death
Montreal Gazette
QUEBEC — The McGill University Health Centre is being forced to backtrack on a policy that exempts its palliative care unit from helping patients die.
Health Minister Gaétan Barrette issued a strongly worded letter to the MUHC’s director general Wednesday, urging him to change the policy, which he says does not respect the law.
“To say that medical aid to die will not be offered in a particular unit … poses a serious problem when it comes to respecting patients’ lawful right to receive end-of-life care,” the minister wrote. . . [Full text]