Category: Publications

Protection of Conscience Project publications

Erroneous assumptions illustrated by editorial

Sean Murphy*

In an editorial titled, “Birth Control: Now a human right,” the Charleston Gazette has expressed support for the Obama administrations regulation that will force objecting employers to provide insurance coverage for “contraceptive services.”  The editorial illustrates five common unexamined and questionable assumptions frequently made by opponents of freedom of conscience in health care.

  • First: it assumes that ‘birth control’ and ‘contraception’ are equivalent terms; they are not.
  • Second: it assumes that contraception is a form a health care, something that many objectors deny.
  • Third: in failing to recognize the distinction that objectors make between contraception and treating illness or injury, it draws the erroneous conclusion that they might refuse to treat sexually transmitted diseases.
  • Fourth: it asserts that birth control (by which it clearly means contraception) is a “human right,” although this has not been legally established.
  • Finally: it suggests that employers who do not pay for employees’ birth control are interfering with their freedom.

 

Project Submission to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

Re: Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection.

(6 October, 2010)

  • Background | On 7 October, 2010, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) considered a report recommending that freedom of conscience be denied to denominational health care facilities and, in  large part, to medical practitioners. Project Submission

Rights Commission threat “blasphemy against the human spirit”

College of Physicians secrecy said unacceptable

News Release

For Immediate Release

Protection of Conscience Project

“Blasphemy against the human spirit.” That is how the Protection of Conscience Project describes a threat by Ontario’s Human Rights Commission to punish doctors who refuse to do what they believe to be wrong. The rebuke is found in a submission to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

Citing writers and philosophers in the democratic tradition, as well as the landmark Morgentaler decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Project argues that to force doctors to act against their conscientious convictions is “to deprive them of their essential humanity.” It calls the proposed policy “profoundly offensive and demeaning.”

“To abandon one’s moral or ethical convictions in order to serve others is prostitution,” states the submission, “not professionalism.”

The brief denies that doctors who refuse to do what they believe is wrong are violating the Human Rights Code. It explains that they are concerned about “complicity in wrongdoing,” not race, sex or other patient characteristics.

The Project submission addresses the College draft policy, Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code. Deadline for comment on the policy was extended to 12 September following protests when news of it became public.

The President of the College told the National Post that the draft has been revised, but refuses to make it public. Project Administrator Sean Murphy finds College secrecy unacceptable.

“At least two substantial briefs reached the College only on Friday,” he said. “The National Post story appeared Saturday. It seems very unlikely that College officials could have considered either submission before revising the draft. This brings into question the validity of the consultation process.”

“But the more important issue,” he said, “is that decision-making that impacts fundamental freedoms should be conducted transparently, not secretly. Why keep the revised draft secret? Is there something to hide?”

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Project Submission to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario

Re: Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code

(11 September, 2008)

Freedom of conscience and religion not a defence

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

Protection of Conscience Project

Ontario physicians are being advised that they are expected to give up freedom of conscience if they wish to practise medicine in the province. The expectation is set out in “Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code,” a draft policy document from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

The document responds to legislative changes, which, according to the Chair of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, will see a twenty-fold increase in hearings before the Tribunal – from 150 to 3,000 cases per year.

According to the College, the Tribunal may take action against a physician who refuses to provide or refer for procedures that he finds morally objectionable. The College strongly suggests that the physician’s freedom of conscience and religion will be ignored because “there is no defence for refusing to provide a service” in such circumstances.

In addition to the possibility of prosecution by the Human Rights Tribunal, the College states that it will consider the Human Rights Code in adjudicating complaints of professional misconduct, even though the College admits that it lacks the expertise and authority in human rights.

The College also plans to force objecting physicians to actively assist patients to obtain morally controversial services. A similar demand – that objectors be forced to refer patients for abortion – generated fierce opposition when it appeared in a 2006 guest editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The College posted the draft policy for consultation near the end of June, with a response deadline of 15 August. The Project, noting that there was no news release about the draft and that “the mid-summer timing of the consultation is less than satisfactory,” has asked the College to extend the deadline by 90 days.

“Commentators like Rex Murphy, Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant have condemned Canadian human rights commissions for suppressing freedom of expression,” noted Sean Murphy, Administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project. “Perhaps we should not be surprised to see them now being used to suppress freedom of conscience and religion among medical professionals.”

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