Protection of Conscience Project News
Service, not Servitude
Saskatoon Star Phoenix
A group of health care workers in Saskatoon have started a fundraiser for a dedicated in-patient facility to provide Medical Assistance in Death (MAiD).
Similar to hospice care, The Cider House would provide a homelike space for patients to access the procedure, staffed by either a doctor or nurse practitioner and a team of end-of-life doulas. . . [Full text]
New York Times
When Ben Wald, 75, was dying of cancer in 2012, he wanted to use Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act to receive a prescription for a lethal medication that would end his life. His hospice nurse, Linda, was part of the discussion and provided both information and support, said his wife, Pam Wald, of Kings Valley, Ore.
His colon cancer had spread to his lungs, and his weight dropped from 180 to 118 pounds. He struggled to speak or eat.
When he was ready to end his life, the couple wanted Linda with them, but the hospice organization she worked for did not allow it, Mrs. Wald said. The organization allowed other hospice workers, such as social workers and massage therapists, to be present, but not the doctors or nurses it employed. . . [Full text]
National Review
Colorado doctor Barbara Morris wants to assist her patient’s suicide. She works at Centura Health, a Catholic/Seventh Day Adventist-owned hospital that prohibits its employees from participating in assisted suicide, legal in Colorado.
Morris sued to be allowed to participate in her patient’s suicide by doctor — which would not happen in the hospital. The hospital responded by firing Morris for violating the terms of her contract by seeking to engage in acts in the context of her employment that violate the hospital’s religiously based moral beliefs.
Morris contends she can’t be prohibited from assisting her patient’s suicide because the Colorado law only allows health care facilities to opt-out if the suicide will occur on-site. The hospital is seeking shelter in the Trump administration’s medical conscience protection policies.
Expect more of these kinds of disputes as many U.S. hospitals are Catholic or otherwise religiously affiliated with churches that reject abortion and assisted suicide doctrinally. From the Kaiser Health News story:
More doctors and patients in the country are providing and receiving health care subject to religious restrictions. About 1 in 6 acute care beds nationally is in a hospital that is Catholic-owned or -affiliated, said Lois Uttley, a program director for the consumer advocacy group Community Catalyst. In Colorado, one-third of the state’s hospitals operate under Catholic guidelines.
The ACLU has already sued several Catholic hospitals over the last few years seeking to force them to violate Church doctrine on issues ranging from sterilization, to abortion, to sex-change surgeries.
Medical conscience disputes are going to become far more common as health care becomes immersed in our accelerating cultural conflicts and vexing questions of federalism. Bottom line: The ultimate goal of those who seek to force medical professionals and institutions to violate their religious beliefs, I believe, is to drive pro-lifers and Hippocratic Oath-adherents out of medicine.
Korean Biomedical Review
The local medical community’s voice is growing for doctors’ rights to refuse to treat a patient, but patients are against the idea. However, the U.S. and Europe have already recognized such rights.
Based on examples in other countries, Korean physicians should also be allowed to refuse treatment in particular situations such as a forced surgery to terminate a fetus, a report said.
The Korean Medical Association (KMA)’s Medical Policy Research Institute released the report, “Status and Challenges of Treatment Refusal,” on Thursday. The institute analyzed examples in other countries and offered 12 situations where doctors can refuse to deliver treatment services. . . [Full text]
Two Liberal Members of Parliament in New South Wales, Australia, have threatened to break with their party cross the floor to sit in opposition if the government does not make changes to a bill decriminalizing abortion (the Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019). Should they do so, the government will lose its parliamentary majority.
Among the amendments Tanya Davies and Kevin Conolly are seeking is removal of a requirement that objecting physicians provide patients with contact information for non-objecting colleagues.
If the bill passes unamended, a physician will be free to fully exercise freedom of conscience at 22 weeks plus one day (when there is no requirement to provide contact information), but not at 22 weeks minus one day (when the bill requires contact information to be supplied.) The inexact calculation of gestational age contributes further to the arbitrariness of this restriction of fundamental human freedom. (See Abortion bill in New South Wales a global first)