Category: Religious Freedom

Patients to be moved out of Covenant Health facilities for assisted deaths

Publicly funded, Catholic health care organization, opposes physician-assisted dying

CBC News

Michelle Bellefontaine

Patients at hospitals and continuing-care facilities run by Covenant Health will be transferred to other Alberta health-care facilities if they seek a physician-assisted death, the province says.

Covenant Health is a Catholic organization that runs publicly funded hospitals in Edmonton and continuing-care facilities across the province. In February, Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith said Covenant Health would not allow patients to end their lives with the help of a doctor in its facilities.

Associate health minister Brandy Payne confirmed Monday that physicians and other health-care workers will not be forced to take part in this procedure if it goes against their beliefs. She said procedures are being set up to move patients, if necessary. . . . [Full Text]

Christian elderly care provider in Canada refuses to provide ‘medical aid in dying’

The Christian Times

CB Condez

Baptist Housing, a Christian senior care provider in Brtiish Columbia, Canada, will not provide physician-assisted death in its facilities, which has disappointed some people who are for allowing terminally ill patients to have the option to end their lives.

“We feel that as a faith organization we would want to exercise our conscience in terms of that,” said CEO Howard Johnson, as quoted by CBC News. “We do believe that there is sanctity in life.”

Grace Pastine, litigation director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Union, said that the housing’s stance is unconstitutional since assisted suicide is legal in Canada and it is “a constitutional right for critically ill Canadians.” . . . [Full Text]

Pope Francis: conscientious objection must be recognized as a human right

Sean Murphy*

In an interview conducted on 9 May by Guillame Goubert & Sébatien Maillard on behalf of La Croix, Pope Francis asserted that secular states must recognize conscientious objection as a human right. (Translation by Stephan Gigacz)

In a secular setting, how should Catholics defend their concerns on societal issues such as euthanasia or same-sex marriage?

Pope Francis: It is up to Parliament to discuss, argue, explain, reason [these issues]. That is how a society grows.

However, once a law has been adopted, the state must also respect [people’s] consciences. The right to conscientious objection must be recognized within each legal structure because it is a human right. Including for a government official, who is a human person. The state must also take criticism into account. That would be a genuine form of laicity.

You cannot sweep aside the arguments of Catholics by simply telling them that they “speak like a priest.” No, they base themselves on the kind of Christian thinking that France has so remarkably developed. [Full Text]

ACLU renews attack on Catholic hospitals over abortion

Baptist Press

Samantha Gobba

ASHEVILLE, N.C.(BP) — The American Civil Liberties Union is launching a renewed attack against religious hospitals, claiming they should not be allowed to base the care they provide on the dictates of their sincerely held beliefs.

In a report released in May, titled “Health Care Denied,” the ACLU targets Catholic hospitals, saying they jeopardize women’s lives because they “prohibit a range of reproductive health services,” including abortion, when something goes wrong during pregnancy.

Grazie Pozo Christie, a Miami-area radiologist and a Catholic, said claims of care being denied are false.

“When a woman’s life is in danger, any treatment that a woman needs will be provided to her, even if it endangers the child,” Christie told WORLD News Service. “So there is no point in a Catholic hospital at which a woman’s life becomes really in danger.” . . .[Full Text]

 

ACLU loses case to force Catholic hospital to perform abortions

LifeSite News

Ben Johnson

DETROIT, April 11, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – A Michigan judge has thrown out the ACLU’s lawsuit attempting to force a nationwide chain of Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division dismissed the case, saying the liberal legal organization lacks standing to sue.

The ACLU filed suit against Trinity Health Corporation, which operates 86 health care facilities in 21 states nationwide, last October because Trinity – a Catholic institution – abides by the U.S. Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs), which bar physicians from taking unborn human life. . . [Full text]