Category: Euthanasia

UCP MLA denies conscience rights bill limits health care access

Backbench MLA faces continued questions about potential implications of Bill 207

CBC News

Michelle Bellefontaine

The Alberta UCP MLA behind a controversial bill on conscience rights for health care providers says the bill isn’t intended to cut access to services like abortion and medical assistance in dying as critics have charged.

“I feel there is some misinformation about what the bill is trying to do and what it does do,” Peace River MLA Dan Williams told reporters Friday.   

“I want to be absolutely clear. This bill in no way categorically limits access to any services. That was not my intent, that is not what the bill does.” . . . [Full text]

Euthanasia: David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill passes final reading

Newshub

Zane Small

ACT leader David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill has passed its final reading in Parliament four years after it was first put in the ballot box.

The Bill – which will let terminally ill adults with less than six months left to live access assisted dying or ‘euthanasia’ – passed its final reading on Wednesday in a conscience vote, with 69 votes for it and 51 against.

But just because the legislation passed its final reading, it won’t actually become law unless the public vote to pass it at the 2020 general election. . . .[Full text] [End of Life Choice Act (2017): Protection of Conscience Provisions]

Health minister uncertain about constitutionality of doctors’ conscience rights bill

Calgary Herald

Bill Kaufman

A controversial doctors’ conscience-rights bill won’t impede services for abortion, transgendered people and those seeking medically assisted death, Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro said Wednesday.

But the minister admitted he isn’t entirely familiar with some aspects of private member’s Bill 207, which passed first reading in the legislature last week.

Those comments came the same day the Alberta Medical Association expressed opposition to the bill, calling it “unnecessary” while saying it threatens to “limit access to patient services.” . . . [Full text]

Advocates concerned Alberta conscience rights bill could put trans people at risk

Bill reopens debate on physicians’ conscience rights

CBC News

Jordan Omstead

Advocates say a bill before the Alberta legislature, purported to defend the conscience rights of health-care professionals, could effectively legalize discrimination against transgender people.

Critics say the bill strips the requirement for health-care professionals to refer a patient to another physician if the patient’s needs conflict with their personal or religious beliefs.

“This bill, as it stands, is going to create a situation where there will be legal, government-sanctioned discrimination,” said Holly Tomm, president of the Trans Equality Society of Alberta.

“It needs to be stopped.” . . . [Full text]

Conscience rights bill will infringe on patients’ access to services, legal experts say

Star Edmonton

Nadine Yousif

EDMONTON—Legal experts say a bill tabled in the Alberta legislature that aims to protect conscience rights of health care providers may have dire consequences for access to health care services in the province, despite the assertion of the government that it will not.

Peace River backbench MLA Dan Williams tabled Bill 207 in the legislature on Thursday — he said the bill seeks to affirm the Charter rights of physicians and nurses who object to providing certain medical procedures on the basis of moral or religious obligations. . . [Full text]