Category: Canada

Groups worry new assisted-dying legislation doesn’t protect physicians’ consciences

Ottawa Citizen

Joanne Laucius

Assisted dying legislation tabled Thursday does not compel health care providers to help patients die, but some are worried the proposed bill won’t legally protect physicians who oppose the practice.

Medical professionals who provide assisted death would no longer have to fear criminal prosecution under the proposed legislation. On the other side, those who object to participating will not be forced to offer the service.

“Under this bill, no health care provider will be required to provide medical assistance in dying,” Health Minister Jane Philpott told reporters Thursday.

But some argue these assurances won’t offer legal protection to health care workers whose consciences won’t allow them to participate in assisted death. . . [Full text]

 

Conscience protection still at risk with assisted death legislation

News Release
For Immediate Distribution

Coalition for HealthCARE and Conscience

OTTAWA, ONT. (April 14, 2016) – The Coalition for HealthCARE and Conscience recognizes that federal legislation tabled today on physician-assisted death has rejected disturbing recommendations from the parliamentary joint committee regarding access to assisted suicide.

However, the coalition, which represents more than 100 healthcare facilities (with almost 18,000 care beds and 60,000 staff) and more than 5,000 physicians across Canada, is concerned that the bill doesn’t protect the conscience rights of health care workers or facilities that morally object to performing or referring for what is being referred to as “medically assisted death.”

By making no reference to conscience rights in the legislation, it appears that the federal government intends to leave it up to individual provincial and territorial governments to determine whether to protect health care workers and institutions and how to do so.

“No other foreign jurisdiction in the world that has legalized euthanasia/assisted suicide forces health care workers, hospitals, nursing homes or hospices to act against their conscience or mission and values,” says Larry Worthen, Coalition member and Executive Director of the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada. “These conscience rights must be preserved. As we review this legislation, we will continue to advocate for the vulnerable and for conscience protection, which is provided in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

A strong majority of Canadians are on side with the coalition’s beliefs on conscience protection. A recent Nanos Research poll found that 75% of Canadians agreed that doctors “should be able to opt out of offering assisted dying,” compared with 21% who disagreed.

Members of the coalition fully support the right people clearly have to accept, to refuse and/ or discontinue the use of life-sustaining treatment and to allow death to occur.  They also hold strong moral convictions that it is never justified for a physician to help take a patient’s life, under any circumstances.

“Our health care workers journey with those who are sick and suffering each day. We will continue to do this in a caring and compassionate way,” Worthen says. “We help patients at the end of life, what we object to is ending their life.”

The coalition contends Canada can significantly reduce the number of people who see death as the only possible option to end their suffering by improving medical and social services.

“Our worth as a society is measured by the support we give to the vulnerable,” said says Worthen. “We need increased access to palliative care, chronic disease and mental health services to help individuals who are suffering across the country.”

The coalition continues to urge Canadians with concerns about assisted suicide legislation to visit CanadiansforConscience.ca where they can communicate directly with their elected members of provincial or federal parliament.

The coalition represents several like-minded organizations committed to protecting conscience rights for health practitioners and institutions. Members of the coalition include the Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto, the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada, the Catholic Organization for Life and Family, the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Societies, the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute, Canadian Physicians for Life and the Catholic Health Alliance of Canada.

For more information, please contact:
Jeff Blay
Media Relations, Coalition for HealthCARE and Conscience
jblay@enterprisecanada.com
289-241-5114

About The Coalition for HealthCARE and Conscience:

The Coalition for HealthCARE and Conscience represents a group of like-minded organizations, including representing more than 110 healthcare facilities (with almost 18,000 care beds and 60,000 staff) and more than 5,000 physicians across Canada , that are committed to protecting conscience rights for faith-based health practitioners and facilities. We were brought together by a common mission to respect the sanctity of human life, to protect the vulnerable and to promote the ability of individuals and institutions to provide health care without having to compromise their moral convictions.

To learn more, visit CanadiansforConscience.ca

Six questions about physician-assisted death, from a conscientious objector

National Post

Ewan C. Goligher

Canadian policy makers have recently proposed to require all doctors to provide an effective referral for physician-assisted death (PAD) upon the patient’s request. Forcing doctors to knowingly send their patient to another doctor willing to cause the patient’s death will seriously compromise the moral integrity of conscientiously objecting doctors and risks undermining the quality of patient care. To understand the position of conscientiously objecting doctors, consider the following questions.

1. Should doctors provide physician-assisted death merely because it is legal?

2. Must all doctors accept the assumptions underpinning the claim that physician-assisted death is good medical care?

3. If physician-assisted death remained illegal, would doctors be legally liable for making an effective referral?

4. Does the Charter right of Freedom of Conscience apply to doctors?

5. How does respect for conscientious objection affect patient care?

6. Will respect for conscientious objection obstruct access to physician-assisted death?

(For the author’s answers, see the full text)

Pope Francis: modernity’s suppression of freedom of conscience is diabolically inspired “polite persecution”

Sean Murphy*

In the course of a morning homily discussing the martyrdom of St. Stephen in Jerusalem,1 Pope Francis linked the “cruel persecutions” of early Christians with the Easter Sunday mass murder of Pakistani Christians three weeks ago by Taliban killers.

However, the Pope also identified “another kind of persecution that is not often spoken about.”   In addition to the “clear, explicit type of persecution” like the slaughter of Christians who profess their belief in Jesus Christ, there is a second kind, he said, one ““disguised as culture, disguised as modernity, disguised as progress.”

“It is a kind of — I would say somewhat ironically — polite persecution.”

This “polite persecution” is not against those who merely profess Christian beliefs, he explained, but against those  who want “to demonstrate the values of the Son of God.”  This “polite persecution” does not use bombs or guns, but the force of law.

“We see every day,” said the Pope, “that the powerful make laws that force people to take this path, and a nation that does not follow this modern collection of laws, or at least that does not want to have them in its legislation, is accused, is politely persecuted.”

This denial of freedom includes the legal suppression of conscientious objection, now notably advocated by powerful interests and some politicians in Canada who want to force participation of even objecting health care workers and institutions in euthanasia and assisted suicide.

“God made us free, but this kind of persecution takes away freedom!”

Canadian health care workers who refuse to provide or facilitate homicide or suicide now face the kind of threats described by Pope Francis,2 who explained how “polite persecution” works.

“[I]f you don’t do this, you will be punished: you’ll lose your job and many things or you’ll be set aside.”

Calling this “the persecution of the world,” the Pope warned that its leader is the one identified by Jesus Christ as “the prince of this world” (i.e., Satan).

“The prince of this world” can be recognized, warned Pope Francis, “when the powerful want to impose attitudes, laws against the dignity of the children of God, persecute them and oppose God the Creator: it is the great apostasy.”

The Christian’s path, he concluded, is always beset by these two kinds of persecution  that bring “much suffering,” so Christians must be confident in the presence of Jesus “with the consolation of the Holy Spirit.”

Notes

1. “Pope’s Morning Homily: Denial of Conscientious Objection Is Persecution.  At Casa Santa Marta, says devil is behind the persecution brought by culture and modernity.”  Zenit, 12 April, 2016

2.  See, for example, Attaran A. “Doctors can’t refuse to help a patient die – no matter what they say.” iPolitics, 13 November, 2015 (Accessed 2015-11-24).  In response, see Murphy S., “Amir Attaran and the Elves.” Protection of Conscience Project, 15 November, 2015;

What’s behind the demolition of conscience rights in Canada?

Mercatornet

Margaret Somerville*

I’ve been puzzling about why Canadian “progressive” values advocates, particularly those passionately in favour of the legalization of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (“physician-assisted death” (PAD)), are so adamant in trying to force healthcare professionals and institutions who have conscience or religious objections to these procedures to become complicit in them.

Complicity would occur if objecting individual physicians were forced to provide “effective referrals” or objecting institutions were forced to allow PAD in their facilities. An “effective referral” is defined by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons as “a referral made in good faith, to a non-objecting, available, and accessible physician or other health-care provider.”

In general, progressive values advocates claim to give priority to rights to individual autonomy, choice, control over what happens to oneself, and tolerance for those who believe differently. Yet in relation to respect for the freedom of conscience and, where relevant, religious belief, of physicians or institutions who oppose PAD, none of these principles seem to be applied. Why? [Full text]