Category: Canada

Supreme Court of Canada signals change in jurisprudence

In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada has struck down three laws restricting prostitution and suspended the effect of its ruling for one year to give the government an opportunity to draft replacement legislation.  Some observers are of the view that the ruling increases the likelihood that assisted suicide or euthanasia will be legalized in Canada, either by judicial fiat or by legislation supporting such a change.  In the prostitution judgement, the court granted lower courts much greater latitude to set aside earlier Supreme Court precedents if new legal issues are raised, or if there has been some other change that “fundamentally shifts the parameters of the debate.”

The Supreme Court is set to hear an appeal from British Columbia in the case of Carter v. Canada, which turns on a precedent established by the Supreme Court in 1993 in the Rodriguez case.  The circumstances are virtually identical (plaintiffs suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease seeking a right to assisted suicide/euthanasia).  The Supreme Court judge in Carter distinguished the case from Rodriguez on some issues and ruled in favour of the plaintiff, but the British Columbia Court of Appeal overturned the ruling in a split decision, citing the Rodriguez precedent as binding.  Since the Supreme Court accepted the trial judge’s finding in the prostitution case that new evidence required a precedent to be set aside, counsel for the plaintiffs in the Carter case is optimistic that it will take the same approach when ruling on euthanasia. [National Post]

 

Quebec’s latest niqab panic

 National Post

Chris Selley

Never having witnessed fascism taking hold, I wouldn’t claim to know it to see it. But whenever commentators have likened the Parti Québécois’ proposed “secularism charter” to the early drumbeats of some historically dire intolerance, my first instinct has been to scoff.

It’s certainly stupid and unfair to threaten public servants with unemployment if they don’t forsake certain religious customs, all to solve a problem that no one except the pollsters seems able to quantify. It’s certainly disturbing that any political party would stoop so low in search of support, and all the more so that the PQ seems to be finding it down there.

But whatever the polls say, Montreal seems more cosmopolitan every time I visit. Despite reports of an uptick in anti-Muslim confrontations, surely it’s a fantastically unlikely breeding ground for any sort of widespread, street-level discrimination.

Surely. But events recently took a shivery turn: A week ago, a woman spotted two daycare workers, dressed in niqabs, marshalling their young charges through the streets of Verdun, in southwest Montreal. And as one does nowadays, she snapped a photo and posted it to Facebook.

Thousands of people saw it. And not all of the commentary was polite. [Full text]

 

Family goes to court to stop spoon-feeding of elderly mother in nursing home

82 year old Margot Bentley is living in a nursing home in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, administered by the Maplewood Seniors Care Society, Fraser Health Authority and the government of British Columbia.  She has Alzheimer’s disease and is being spoon-fed because she can still swallow.  She is not force-fed if she does not open her mouth.  Her family has launched a civil suit to compel the nursing home to stop feeding her, citing her “living will” signed in 1991, about ten years before she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  The document states that she did not want “nourishment or liquids” if she is suffering from an incurable disease.  The defendant nursing home has filed another “living will” that states that she would accept “basic care.”  The authenticity of the document is disputed by the family.  The nursing home argues that spoon-feeding is basic care, not “medical” care or treatment, and is legally obligatory.  The family insists that spoon-feeding must be discontinued, since patients are entitled to refuse medical treatment or care, and Margot Bentley had stated that refusal in her “living will.”   [Vancouver Sun]

 

Impartiality, complicity and perversity

 Sean Murphy*

Impartiality, complicity and perversity

Benjamin Veness weighs in on behalf of the Australian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA) to demand that physicians who believe abortion is wrong should be forced to direct patients to a colleague willing to provide it (“Abortion need not be doctor’s dilemma too.” Sydney Morning Herald, 16 November, 2013).

He and medical students who share his views believe that Victoria’s abortion law is the model that ought to apply throughout Australia.  It follows from this that they believe that any Australian physician who refuses to help a patient find someone willing to do a sex selective abortion should be struck from the medical register or otherwise disciplined.

Mr. Veness correctly believes that this would be consistent with Victoria’s abortion law, and he is hardly alone in believing that physicians who refuse to facilitate abortion for reasons of conscience should be disciplined or expelled from the profession.

However, he and the students whom he represents are mistaken in their assumption that a physician who is morally opposed to abortion – whether in principle, or because he has more limited moral objections to practices like sex selective abortion – is not capable of providing information about the procedure and legal options available to a patient.  In fact, many physicians opposed to abortion are quite willing to do so for the very reasons given by Mr. Veness: that the patient may ultimately decide not to go ahead with it.

More remarkable is the fact that the outlook of Mr. Veness and the Australian Medical Students’ Association suggests that only people willing to do what they believe to be gravely wrong ought to become physicians.  Whether or not this is a condition for membership in the AMSA Mr. Veness does not say, but it is not a policy conducive to the ethical practice of medicine.

What is most striking is Mr. Veness’ belief that only physicians willing to facilitate or provide abortions are “impartial,” as if the judgement that an abortion ought to be provided does not involve a moral judgement.  A conviction that abortion is (or can be) a good thing is just as “partial” as the opposite conviction of an objecting physician.  Mr. Veness’ mistaken notion of what it means to be “impartial’ is evidence that he and the AMSA are anything but.

For some physicians, referral is an acceptable strategy for avoiding complicity in what they hold to be wrong or at least morally questionable.  Others find it unacceptable because they believe that referral and other forms of facilitation actively enable wrongdoing and make them parties to it.  Mr. Veness and the AMSA may dispute this, but it is hardly a novel idea.  It is reflected, for example, in Section 45 of the Australian Capital Territory’s Criminal Code (Complicity and common purpose).1

More relevant, perhaps, is the broad definition of “participation” developed by the American Medical Association in its prohibition of physician participation in capital punishment. This includes “an action which would assist, supervise, or contribute to the ability of another individual to directly cause the death of the condemned,” and even giving advice.2

Lest the connection with capital punishment be thought out of place here, Australian medical students and physicians should take note that the arguments used to compel objecting physicians to provide or facilitate abortion are the same ones used by euthanasia advocates who would  force physicians to lethally inject their patients, or help them find someone who will.  That has been obvious in Belgium from the beginning,3 and it has been equally evident in Canada,4 most recently in Quebec.5

What is gradually becoming clear is that policies and laws devised to ensure the “accessibility” of abortion by suppressing freedom of conscience among health care workers lead ultimately to a perverse conclusion: that one can be forced to do what one believes to be gravely wrong, even if that means killing someone else, or finding someone who is willing to do the killing.  That conclusion is profoundly inconsistent with principles that ought to inform the laws and policies of a liberal democracy.

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Notes

1.  Australian Capital Territory, Criminal Code 2002. (Accessed 2013-11-15)

2.  American Medical Association, Policy E-2.06 Capital Punishment (June, 2000) (Accessed 2013-11-15)

3.  Murphy, Sean. Belgium: Mandatory referral for euthanasia.

4.  A panel of the Royal Society of Canada recommended legalization of assisted suicide/euthanasia. The panel stated that, since physicians who are unwilling to provide what it delicately termed “certain reproductive health services” are obliged to refer patients to others who will (a contested assertion), physicians who refuse to provide (legal) euthanasia or assisted suicide for patients “are duty-bound to refer them in a timely fashion to a health care professional who will.” Schuklenk U, van Delden J.J.M, Downie J, McLean S, Upshur R, Weinstock D. Report of the Royal Society of Canada Expert Panel:  End of Life Decision Making.  November, 2011, p. 61-62 (Accessed 2011-12-31).

5.  Hearings were held recently by a committee of the Quebec National Assembly concerning a bill to legalize euthanasia by physicians.  State regulators of the professions of medicine, nursing and pharmacy all stated that their codes of ethics (developed as a result of controversies about abortion and birth control) require objecting professionals to refer or find colleagues willing to provide the service(s) to which they object.  It is clear that they mean to apply the same rule to euthanasia, although it is equally clear that this causes some of them some discomfort.  See, for example, the statement of Charles Bernard on behalf of the College of Physicians of Quebec at Quebec National Assembly, Consultations & hearings on Quebec Bill 52: College of Physicians of Quebec. Tuesday 17 September 2013 – Vol. 43 no. 34, T#154

Jewish General Hospital opposes Bill 60 as patently discriminatory

News Release

The Jewish General Hospital (JGH) strongly opposes Bill 60, on the grounds that the plan by the current Government of Quebec to ban overt religious symbols in the clothing of healthcare employees is discriminatory and deeply insulting to public-sector workers.
Contrary to statements in the bill, the JGH believes that neutrality in the delivery of healthcare services is not compromised by religious symbols in the clothing of employees. As long as services are delivered with professional competence, courtesy and respect, no legislation should be allowed to override the freedoms of religion or expression that are guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and by the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

“This bill is flawed and contrary to Quebec’s spirit of inclusiveness and tolerance,” says Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, JGH Executive Director. “Since the bill is inherently prejudicial, there is no point in taking advantage of any clause that would grant us temporary, short-term relief. If approved, this offensive legislation would make it extremely difficult for the JGH to function as an exemplary member of Quebec’s public healthcare system.” Dr. Rosenberg’s statement is endorsed by the JGH Board of Directors.

For nearly 80 years, the JGH has prided itself on the fact that its staff—representing a wide diversity of faiths, with many employees wearing conspicuous items of clothing with religious symbols—has provided care of superior quality to Quebecers of all backgrounds. JGH patients continue to come to this hospital in ever-increasing numbers with only one thought in mind: to receive treatment and care of the highest quality. This is what matters most to residents of the hospital’s Côte-des-Neiges area, which is widely regarded as one of the most ethnically, racially, culturally, linguistically and religiously diverse neighbourhoods in Canada. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the JGH receives no complaints about the religious or cultural apparel of its staff.

A brief outlining the position of the Jewish General Hospital will be submitted to the National Assembly at a later date.

No interviews will be given on the matter.

Contact:

Glenn J. Nashen, Director
Astrid Morin, Media Relations

Public Affairs and Communications Jewish General Hospital

Tel.: 514-340-8222  ext. 4612

Email: amorin@jgh.mcgill.ca

Website: jgh.ca