Category: Canada

Access to Birth Control Isn’t Just About Doctors

Ottawa Citizen

Kelly Grindrod , Sherilyn Houle

Earlier this summer, a debate was sparked by the experience of Kate Desjardins, an Ottawa woman who went to a walk-in clinic to renew her birth control prescription. She was handed a letter informing her that three of the clinic physicians were not prescribing birth control because of their “religious values.”

At the time, most media outlets noted that this meant she was forced to find another physician. But she had a choice that almost no one is talking about.

Her pharmacist could have also written the renewal prescription for her. . . [Full text]

Medical aid in dying: Court challenge

News Release

Living with Dignity, Physicians’ Alliance

MONTREAL, July 17, 2014 /CNW Telbec/ – As announced when Bill 52, An Act Respecting End-of-Life Care, was adopted, the citizen movement Living with Dignity (LWD) and the Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia (the Alliance), representing together over 650 physicians and 17,000 citizens, have today filed a lawsuit before the Superior Court of Quebec in the District of Montreal.

The lawsuit requests that the Court declare invalid all the provisions of An Act Respecting End-of-Life Care that deal with “medical aid in dying”, a euphemism used to describe euthanasia. This Act not only allows certain patients to demand that a physician provoke their death, but also grants physicians the right to cause the death of these patients by the administration of a lethal substance.

The Alliance and LWD are challenging the constitutionality of those provisions in the Act which are aimed at decriminalizing euthanasia under the euphemism “medical aid in dying”. Euthanasia constitutes a culpable homicide under the Criminal Code. It is a subject-matter which is at the core of the exclusive federal legislative power in relation to criminal law and Quebec therefore does not have the power to adopt these provisions.

In addition, the impugned provisions unjustifiably infringe the rights to life and to security of patients guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. They further infringe the right to the safeguard of the dignity of the person, which is also protected by the Quebec Charter.

In view of the gravity of the situation and the urgent need to protect all vulnerable persons in Quebec, the Alliance and LWD request an accelerated management of the case in order to obtain a judgement before the expected coming into force of the Act on December 10, 2015.

Sources: The citizen network Living with Dignity and the Physicians’ Alliance against euthanasia .

Doctors’ conscience rights under attack in birth control debate

One physician threatens to give up his practice rather than kill patients

BC Catholic

Deborah Gyapong

Doctors who refuse to prescribe birth control pills have become the focus of a debate over physicians’ rights to freedom of conscience and religion when practising medicine.

An Alberta doctor has been in the media spotlight recently for posting a notice at the clinic where she works she will not prescribe the pill and now faces a human rights complaint. Earlier this year, three Ottawa doctors came under fire for similar reasons. The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPSO) is doing a public consultation on its guidelines that could be revamped to restrict doctors’ rights to abstain from legal medical practices on religious or conscientious grounds.

For Dr. Howie Bright, past president of the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Societies (CFCPS), the attack on birth control is a “fairly discrete target because it sounds weird that a modern doctor” would not prescribe contraception and is likely to “generate reaction.” [Full text]

Are we willing to make doctors into mere robots?

 LifeSite News

Reproduced with permission

Lea Singh

Some years ago I filled out a prescription for Yasmin, a birth control pill that is often prescribed, as in my case, to control acne for young women. Luckily the warning label scared me enough that I ended up throwing those pills in the garbage. I felt a bit foolish but followed my gut against the assurances of my doctor, who considered those pills the equivalent of Tylenol.

He was wrong. Yasmin made headlines last year when it was linked, together with another birth control pill, to the deaths of 23 women in Canada. This February the European Medicines Agency also admitted that the blood clot risks of Yasmin and similar newer birth control pills are much greater than previously thought.

The EMA’s statement came on the heels of a French report showing that about 20 French women per year died between 2000 and 2011 as a result of fatal blood clots from such ‘third-generation’ pills. All British physicians have now been ordered to warn their patients about the potentially fatal risk of blood clots associated with these pills.

But all this is apparently not enough. Nor is it enough that the World Health Organization has classified oral contraceptives as “carcinogenic to humans.”

It may never be enough for certain people, like Konrad Yakabuski of The Globe and Mail who recently criticized three Ottawa doctors for refusing to prescribe or refer for artificial contraception, saying: “The safety and effectiveness of popular government-approved contraceptives is not generally considered a matter of ‘medical judgment’ these days.”

Tell that to the families of the women who died on Yasmin, Mr. Yakabuski. The truth is, scientists are still studying the risks associated with our methods of artificial birth control, and the drugs that are legal and seemingly safe today might be history tomorrow.

Family doctors are often the first ones to see the red flags, and they should be free to stick to their medical judgements. After my Yasmin scare, I want doctors like that – doctors who haven’t been silenced by fear of feminist backlash, who dare to refuse to pump dangerous chemicals into my body. Such doctors might make me think twice about asking for that chemical cocktail, and they could save my life.

But medical judgement is not the only good reason why doctors might refuse to prescribe or refer. We should never require doctors to participate in treatments that would leave them feeling like they (sometimes quite literally) just killed a baby.

Why would we want to crush and destroy the spirit of our doctors by forcing them to cooperate with what they believe to be deeply wrong?

Here’s why: because the technical abilities of medicine have outgrown the moral limits of most world religions, and many people now feel entitled to treatments that their doctors might find abhorrent.

So the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is reviewing their policy on the freedom of doctors to refuse to provide or refer for treatments that violate their deepest moral and religious convictions.

Are we willing to make doctors into mere robots who won’t be allowed to question, much less refuse, our ethically precarious requests? Some people argue that since doctors work on the public dime, they should be like medical vending machines that dispense any legal service on demand.

But if we strip our doctors of their conscience in order to do our bidding, here’s the price we pay. First, expect an exodus of principled doctors from the profession. We’ll be chasing away the very doctors who might protect us most, those who are willing to take a stand against bad medicine. Not to mention that practising Christians, among others, will effectively be barred from applying to medical schools.

Second, we will be left with doctors who are either willing to do things they consider unethical, or who have few ethical limits to begin with. I get creepy visions of the darkest moments of history repeating, as we find one day that nothing remains to protect us from those same doctors when we are weak and vulnerable.

With euthanasia knocking on Ontario’s door from neighbouring Quebec, now would be a good time to think about how personal ethics and integrity should be valued, not discouraged in our physicians.

Conscience rights for Ontario doctors may be on chopping block again

LifeSite News

Pete Balinski

Ontario’s College of Physicians and Surgeons is looking to update its policy on whether or not a doctor can refuse treatments on religious or moral grounds. The move has life and family advocates concerned doctors may be forced to violate their moral convictions when serving a patient, including one day being forced to participate in or refer for abortion and euthanasia.

“It is dangerous to ask anyone to set aside moral convictions. The greater the power and influence of the person involved, the more dangerous it is,” Sean Murphy, administrator of the Canada-based Protection of Conscience Project, told LifeSiteNews.

The College’s policy review comes at a time when mainstream media has highlighted a number of stories about women complaining that doctors would not prescribe birth control pills, either because of a medical judgment, ethical concerns, or religious beliefs. The reports have consistently sided with the pill-seeking women over the doctors. . . .[Full text]