Category: Canada

Constitutional lawyers debate conscience rights

BC Catholic

Deborah Gyapong

Legal experts squared off in a debate on physicians’ conscience rights March 16 in a debate hosted by the University of Ottawa’s law school.

Albertos Polizogopoulos, representing five Ontario doctors challenging Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeon policies requiring effective referral on procedures such as abortion and euthanasia, argued for conscience rights. He argued Section 2(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides such protection. . .

 

Queen’s University Senior Contracts Negotiator Ricardo Smalling argued physicians’ conscience rights must be balanced with the rights of patients who are seeking care in their “weakest” moments.

Highlighting the “subjective nature of conscience,” Smalling said eliminating conscientious objection “is the only way to ensure there is a predictable framework that guarantees a patient’s health care.” . . . [Full text]

 

Doctors harvesting organs from Canadian patients who underwent medically assisted death

What if people agree to donate, but then change their mind about euthanasia? Would they feel compelled to follow through, knowing someone is waiting for their organs?

National Post

Sharon Kirkey

Doctors have already harvested organs from dozens of Canadians who underwent medically assisted death, a practice supporters say expands the pool of desperately needed organs, but ethicists worry could make it harder for euthanasia patients to voice a last-minute change of heart.

In Ontario, 26 people who died by lethal injection have donated tissue or organs since the federal law decriminalizing medical assistance in dying, or MAID, came into effect last June, according to information obtained by the Post. A total of 338 have died by medical assistance in the province. . . [Full text]

 

 

Project comment on Quebec euthanasia statistics

News Release

For immediate release

Protection of Conscience Project

LifeSite News has published an article concerning Quebec euthanasia statistics collated by the Project.

During the interview that led to the publication of the article, the Project Administrator expressed concern that a significant increase in the volume of cases in the last half of 2016 could increase pressure on physicians and other health care workers who do not wish to participate in the procedure.  Such pressure was generated across Canada by the exponential increase in the number of abortions following liberalization of the abortion law in 1969, from under 300 in eleven years[1] to over 11,000 in the first year after the change in the law.[2]  The number of euthanasia and assisted suicide cases in the first year of legalization seems unlikely to exceed 20%  of that number, but this is still sufficient to warrant concern about pressure on objecting health care workers.

The statistical returns disclose some wide differences between different regions or reporting agencies, and sometimes between reporting agencies in the same administrative region.  For example: the number of euthanasia requests per 100,000 population is reported to be much higher in the Quebec City area than in the rest of the province, while the number of euthanasia requests per 100,000 palliative patients reported in Lanaudiere and Laval is much higher than in the Montreal Region.  Euthanasia is reported to be provided per 100,000 population in the Quebec City area at a rate three times that of Montreal.

The Administrator explained that the statistics were primarily useful in raising important questions about the reasons for such variations or trends, such as differences in the quality or accessibility of palliative care or the nature of patient illnesses.

Note

1. Waring G. “Report from Ottawa.” CMAJ Nov. 11, 1967, vol. 97, 1233 (Accessed 2016-06-15).

2. In 1970, the first year under the new rules, there were more than 11,000. In 1971 there were almost 39,000. “Therapeutic abortion: government figures show big increase in ‘71.” CMAJ May 20, 1972, Vol. 106, 1131 (Accessed 2016-06-15)

[Release revised 2017-03-14]

Conscience rights to be addressed by Ontario legislators

The Catholic Register

Michael Swan

The right being sought by many Ontario doctors to refuse to give patient referrals for euthanasia and assisted suicide will be addressed in committee meetings at Queen’s Park in the next month.

Progressive Conservative health critic Jeff Yurek plans to introduce a conscience-protection amendment to legislation currently being debated in the Ontario legislature.

Now in second reading, Bill 84 is designed to clear up legal ambiguities surrounding doctor-assisted suicide — everything from how coroners are to record assisted suicide deaths to the right of families to collect insurance benefits. However, the legislation currently does not include conscience protection for doctors. Instead, Ontario’s independent regulator for doctors requires all doctors to provide an “effective referral” for procedures, even if the doctor objects on moral, religious or conscience grounds. . . [Full text]