Category: Publications

Protection of Conscience Project publications

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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Related Links:

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.”

Related Links:

Bedrock values?

Project letter to The Canadian Pharmaceutical Journal

Sean Murphy*

Polly Thompson asserts that religious tolerance is “a bedrock value of our democracy, and it goes both ways,” but then claims that “the onus is on the health professional to respect the religious beliefs of the patient, not the other way around,” a most peculiar form of tolerant reciprocity. The balance of the editorial demonstrates a troubling ignorance of the legal requirements to accommodate conscientious objectors[1] and de facto contempt of the “bedrock value” she purports to respect in theory. (The Public Trust and Access to Medication, Canadian Pharmaceutical Journal, October, 2004, Vol. 137, No. 8).

Patients and pharmacists have equal claims to freedom of conscience and expression, but one looks in vain in the editorial for a thoughtful analysis of how to deal fairly with conflicts of conscience in health care. A principled approach to conscientious objection would, among other things, distinguish between life-threatening injuries or conditions, and non-emergent situations. To equate the provision of blood transfusions for accident victims with dispensing contraceptives or post-coital interceptives suggests a disappointing editorial interest in polemics, not principle.

Thompson is mistaken when she claims that some pharmacists raise religious objections to her access to medication. Their concerns are not with her access, but with their own moral culpability should they facilitate harmful conduct or other wrongdoing by someone else.

The fact that a drug is legal does not determine this issue. By way of comparison, mouthwash is a legal product commonly sold in pharmacies. It can also be an intoxicant when consumed as a beverage. A conscientious pharmacist might well refuse to sell mouthwash to an alcoholic known to consume it for that purpose, whether or not the product could be accessed elsewhere.

Similarly, the practice of law is a self-regulated profession, and, like pharmacists, lawyers are expected to serve the interests of their clients. But a client cannot force a lawyer to facilitate what the lawyer considers to be a wrongful act – even if the act is legal.

Ms. Thompson’s fierce determination to adhere to her own moral views is not surprising, but she has failed to demonstrate that her morality is so superior that it should be imposed upon those who disagree with her. Indeed, she did not even attempt such a demonstration before calling for the elimination of “troubling holes” and “wiggle room” that make grudging allowance for freedom of conscience in pharmacy. Her message to those unwilling to go along with her is uncompromising; get out of the profession. Given this totalitarian mindset, Ms. Thompson’s complaint that ‘fundamentalist extremists’ dictate policy in the United States invites the waggish response that in Canada they write editorials for professional journals.

Pharmacy regulatory authorities can, with some imagination and good will, find ways to ensure “timely access to legal medication” without suppressing of freedom of conscience in the profession. The Canadian Pharmaceutical Journal can contribute to this kind of fruitful accommodation. But the profession and the public are not well served by the kind of incoherence, intolerance, polemics and ignorance of human rights jurisprudence displayed in its October editorial.

Sean Murphy, Administrator
Protection of Conscience Project

Notes

1. Benson I. “Autonomy”, “Justice” and the Legal Requirement to Accommodate the Conscience and Religious Beliefs of Professionals in Health Care [Internet]. Powell River (BC): Protection of Conscience Project; 2001 Mar. The Canadian Pharmaceutical Journal declined to publish the essay, which was a response to an article by Frank Archer that had appeared in an earlier number of the Journal. See also Murphy S. In Defence of the New Heretics: A Response to Frank Archer [Internet]. Powell River (BC): Protection of Conscience Project; 2000 Jul – also declined by the CPJ.

Planned Parenthood and “Anti-Choice” Rhetoric

News Release

Protection of Conscience Project

Planned Parenthood Alberta is recycling the accusation that physicians who object to abortion may “scare” patients with “misinformation” or “impose their moral beliefs.” This smear may be unfairly applied to conscientious objectors who follow the guidelines of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA).

The CMA advises physicians to inform a patient when their personal morality would influence their recommendations or practice, and to advise patients of their objections to abortion. The CPSA expects physicians to provide information to patients seeking abortion so that they can “make informed decisions on all available options for their pregnancies, including termination.”

On the other hand, objecting physicians can hardly be expected to present morally controversial procedures as morally uncontroversial, or in such a way as to indicate that they approve of them or are indifferent to them. Moreover, the information they reasonably believe necessary to permit the patient to make a truly “informed decision” may be more comprehensive or in other respects different from what Planned Parenthood is accustomed to provide its clients.

An interest group like Planned Parenthood might well stigmatize such discussion as ‘moralizing’ and providing ‘misinformation’. Partisan polemics of this sort do not provide a basis for sound policy making.

Planned Parenthood Alberta is compiling a list of what it calls “anti-choice doctors.” If it is desirable to help patients find physicians who share their outlook on moral issues, it would be preferable for doctors to identify themselves, perhaps through the College of Physicians and Surgeons or professional associations.

But if Planned Parenthood persists in its plan to identify “anti-choice doctors”, it should include in its list the names of physicians who believe that their colleagues should be forced to provide or facilitate morally controversial procedures.

Related: Planned Parenthood and “Anti-Choice Rhetoric” (commentary)