Category: United States

Let’s Expand the Scope of Conscience Protection

Evolution News and Science Today

 Wesley J. Smith

As I have written here and elsewhere, attacks on medical conscience are proliferating, and the ground is being prepared to strip doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and others of the ability to practice their professions under the principles of Hippocratic ideals.

I suspect that if the Left ever again takes control of the government, conscience rights will come under even more concerted attack than is currently happening. I mean, they tried to force nuns to provide contraception in the order’s health insurance.

A bill was introduced in Congress to strengthen existing conscience protections. Called the Conscience Protection Act of 2017, . . . but the legislation, as written, is far too narrowly drawn. The pending crisis of medical conscience extends far beyond abortion. . . [Full text]

 

Doctors launch online pledge against torture

BioEdge

Michael Cook*

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has launched an online pledge for health professionals across the United States to reject torture as an absolute wrong which can never be sanctioned.

“At a time when human rights are increasingly under threat, we’ve launched this pledge to marshal the powerful voices of health professionals across the United States and reaffirm their ethical duties to honour human dignity,” said PHR’s executive director, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)Donna McKay. . . .[Full text]

New England Journal of Medicine publishes “attack on medical conscience”

Pro-Lifers: Get Out of Medicine!

First Things

Wesley J. Smith

Doctors in the United States cannot be forced to perform abortions or assist suicides. But that may soon change. Bioethicists and other medical elites have launched a frontal assault against doctors seeking to practice their professions under the values established by the Hippocratic Oath. The campaign’s goal? To force doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and others in the health field who hold pro-life or orthodox religious views to choose between their careers and their convictions.

Ethics opinions, legislation, and court filings seeking to deny “medical conscience” have proliferated as journals, legislative bodies, and the courts have taken up the cause. In the last year, these efforts have moved from the relative hinterlands of professional discussions into the center of establishment medical discourse. Most recently, preeminent bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel—one of Obamacare’s principal architects—coauthored with Ronit Y. Stahl an attack on medical conscience in the New England Journal of Medicine, perhaps the world’s most prestigious medical journal. When advocacy of this kind is published by the NEJM, it is time to sound the air raid sirens. . . [Full text]

 

Should American doctors participate in executions?

BioEdge

Michael Cook*

The American state of Arkansas executed four prisoners in April. They were given a lethal injection with a three-drug cocktail, a procedure which requires some medical skills. Should doctors take part in such executions?

The consensus amongst medical ethicists is No. The American Medical Association insists that participation violates a fundamental principal of medicine: do no harm. However, many of the 31 states with capital punishment require the presence of a doctor during the execution.

In an unusual intervention in the bitter debate, cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar has written an op-ed in the New York Times arguing that the presence of doctors is ethical. . . [Full text]

Health indignity: A Carmichael hospital denied a trans man his hysterectomy. Now he’s suing.

Dignity Health moves patient’s surgery to another hospital over Catholic directives

newsreview.com

Dave Kempa

Two days before Evan Minton’s scheduled hysterectomy last September at Dignity Health Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a nurse called to discuss pre- and post-operation care. Toward the end of the call, Minton had a request.

“‘I just want to let you know that I’m transgender and my pronouns mean a great deal to me,'” he recalled saying.

According to Minton, the nurse was affirming. He hung up with a positive feeling. But the next day his doctor called with bad news. The hospital had canceled the procedure. He was terrified that the cancellation would add months or years to his physical transition.

Now, seven months later, the 35-year-old is teaming up with the American Civil Liberties Union to sue Dignity Health for denying care to a transgender patient. . . [Full text]