Category: Religious Freedom

Manitoba bill aims to protect staff unwilling to offer assisted death

Doctors or nurses who refuse to help patient die protected from repercussions under new legislation

CBC News

Medical professionals in Manitoba who refuse to help terminally ill patients die will be protected from reprisals under new legislation introduced Tuesday.

Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives said Bill 34, The Medical Assistance in Dying (Protection for Health Professionals and Others) Act, will ensure staff cannot be compelled to go against their own religious or ethical beliefs.

“The legislation will protect the rights of those who do not wish to participate in medically assisted death for conscience, faith or other reasons,” Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen said.

The move follows announcements last year from two Winnipeg faith-based hospitals, Concordia Hospital (Anabaptist-Mennonite) and St. Boniface Hospital (Catholic), which said they will not provide the service to patients. . . [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]

 

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]

 

Linking Healthcare Access to Conscience Freedoms, Christian Medical Association Hails Presidential Executive Order

News Release

Christian Medical Association

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ — Citing the link between patient access to healthcare and conscience freedom for health professionals, the 18,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA, www.cmda.org) today expressed gratitude for President Trump’s executive order that begins to provide stronger protections against discrimination against individuals and organizations of faith.

“Protecting religious freedom means protecting the millions of individuals served by organizations and professionals who are motivated and guided by the tenets of their faith,” explained Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the 85-year-old nonpartisan organization of Christian doctors and students. “The faith that compels so many health professionals to minister to patients in underserved areas and populations is the same faith that compels us to practice according to moral and ethical guidelines. Conscience freedoms are the foundation of our service.

“When the government refuses to accommodate those faith principles, or–as we experienced in the previous administration’s contraceptives and transgender mandates–attempts to coerce people of faith to violate those principles, those who suffer include the poor, the marginalized and the vulnerable.”

Represented by Becket Law, the Christian Medical Association recently successfully challenged the Obama administration’s transgender mandate. Represented by Americans United for Life, CMA filed an amicus brief in the contraceptives mandate Supreme Court case, Zubik v. Burwell.

CMA also worked to help establish the nation’s first health professionals’ conscience protection rule, promulgated in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Obama administration subsequently gutted the conscience rule and also attempted to force faith-based organizations to participate in morally objectionable contraceptives such as Plan B and the morning-after pill.

“We are grateful for this executive order that begins to turn the tide back toward freedom of faith and speech, including political speech. Americans do not give up their First Amendment protections when they speak from the pulpit, counsel their patients or minister in a faith-based outreach to help the poor,” Dr. Stevens observed. “Threatening the First Amendment freedoms of any one group threatens the First Amendment freedoms of all of us, and protecting those freedoms protects us all.”

Contact: Margie Shealy, Christian Medical Association, 888-230-2637, 423-341-4254 mobile, margie.shealy@cmda.org

MPP Yurek introduces private member’s bill to protect conscience rights

News Release

For immediate release

Jeff Yurek

QUEEN’S PARK – This morning Ontario PC Health Critic MPP Jeff Yurek (Elgin-Middlesex-London), introduced his private member’s bill that would amend the government’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) legislation to protect the conscience rights of health care providers.

Yurek’s bill, An Act to amend the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991 with respect to medical assistance in dying, will make participation in MAID voluntary. The amendments will allow health care professionals to refuse to directly or indirectly participate in MAID if it violates their conscience or religious beliefs, without facing discipline from their regulatory college.

“There are ways for the government to ensure access to MAID while not infringing on freedom of conscience,” stated Yurek. “Provinces such as Alberta have proposed a self-referral system that respects patient wishes while not infringing on freedom of conscience. These are basic rights we have in Canada that the Liberals are ignoring. Not only did they Liberals omit protection of conscience rights in their legislation, they voted against Ontario PC amendments that would have addressed this important issue.”

“Only the PCs have continued to stand beside our doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals.  They should under no circumstances should be forced to participate in medical assistance in dying. It is my hope that the Liberal members will support my Bill to protect the rights of health care professionals across our province.” concluded MPP Jeff Yurek

The bill will be debated on May 18, 2017.

CONTACT: Whitney McWilliam
P: 226-448-6741
E: whitney.mcwilliam@pc.ola.org