Canada Archives - Page 140 of 151 - Protection of Conscience Project News

When rights collide

Nigel Hannaford

A few years ago, a customer asked Co-op pharmacist Maria Bizecki to fill a prescription for an abortion drug. For Bizecki, a Roman Catholic and active pro-lifer, this was akin to being invited to become an accessory to murder. She declined.

It was a risky stand against the prevailing view of pharmaceutical professional associations, and employers retailing drugs. Yet, ultimately it led to a small step forward for Albertans’ religious freedom.

The Alberta College of Pharmacists (ACP), for instance, her profession’s ethics watchdog, emphasizes a client’s right to have pharmaceutical needs met. It grants conscience leeway to its members, though this did not save Bizecki from facing complaints about her stand.

More particularly, the conscience clause is little help to pharmacists dealing with unsympathetic employers.

The letter one Pro-Life Ontario pharmacist got from his boss (quoted in the Pro-Life paper, Interim) eloquently expresses the all-business perspective: “You are not employed by the company to make moral or philosophical decisions about whether birth control is appropriate for the customer . . . we are engaged in a retail activity.”

The letter concluded with a threat of termination, noting that if the pharmacist couldn’t separate his beliefs from his job, he should “think long and hard about whether you could continue in your capacity.”

Co-op was comparatively gentle. Bizecki had been straightforward with them about her views, and was known in the community as a pro-life activist. She was suspended with pay.

She doesn’t talk about the complaints which led to her being investigated by the ACP; the details are subject to her duty of confidentiality. Still, when in 2000, a pro-choice website challenged the conscience rights of pharmacists, the prompt arrival of the first complaint was no surprise.

The situation was a pickle of contending rights and obligations.

Obviously, if a prescribed drug is legal, a client has a right to buy it, and a druggist to sell it. But, only the wilfully blind wouldn’t admit honest people can sincerely disagree over abortion. As employees are not mere instruments of an employer’s will, but have a right of conscience, even an obligation, how does one loosen the tangle?

One way is to choose. When human rights commissions do so, religious freedoms sometimes lose. The case of a Catholic school board
compelled to allow a gay student to bring his boyfriend to a prom, is illustrative.

The other way is negotiation. It took nearly three years for Bizecki’s lawyer, Gerry Chipeur, the college and Co-op to work it out, but there was a happy ending. That is, something which worked for everybody, and it serves as a useful template.

The reasonable accommodation of Bizecki’s principles was a written agreement in which she recognized the public’s right to have a prescription filled by a pharmacist, and that she could not and should not obstruct it. But, employers have a duty to reasonably accommodate employee scruples, and Co-op agreed not to demand she fill prescriptions for drugs which effect abortions. Thus, with the college’s blessing, she would always be part of a two-person dispensary.

Chipeur adds this might not be a reasonable accommodation for a one- person pharmacy: “However, in Canada employers have always had a duty to be reasonable, so long as there’s no undue burden. This is the first time that I’m aware, that there has been such an accommodation. If there’s a similar breakdown in Alberta in the future, it would be unwise for any health employer to not accommodate a pro-life position. I’d just say this to pro-lifers: Don’t take a job in an abortion clinic and then say you don’t want to do abortions.”

What distinguishes this case from some of the head-on rights collisions we’ve seen in Canada, is that the parties would accept a solution, not hold out for a victory. Canada aspires to be a tolerant country.

This is what tolerance looks like.

Related Links:

Alberta pharmacist vindicated for pro-Life stand

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Mike Mastromatteo

A Calgary pharmacist has reached an agreement with her employer and the Alberta College of Pharmacists that will allow her to refrain from providing customers with prescriptions designed to terminate unborn human life.

Maria Bizecki of the Co-op Pharmacy in Calgary became the subject of an internal review by the Alberta College of Pharmacists last year after she refused to dispense the so-called “morning-after” pill and other products to which she is morally opposed.[Full text]

Project Letter to the Telegraph Journal

New Brunswick, Canada
12 November, 2002

Sean Murphy, Administrator
Protection of Conscience Project

Doctors at the hospital in Moncton have decided to perform only abortions they believe necessary for maternal health, so that scarce health care resources can be dedicated to reducing waiting lists for surgery. Dr. Henry Morgentaler calls this “disgusting”. He also accuses his colleagues of unethical conduct because they appear to be imposing their religious or moral views on patients. (Morgentaler calls decision to halt abortions ‘disgusting’ 9 November, 2002)

It is remarkable that Dr. Morgentaler should be disgusted by physicians who perform abortions for ‘health’ reasons, but not abortions for which there is no medical justification. When he decided to break the law against abortion, it was because he decided to follow something he called his “medical conscience”.¹ His Moncton colleagues, while they will break no law, are doing the same thing. Baseless diatribes about ‘imposing moral beliefs’ are unfair and do nothing to improve health care in New Brunswick.

Dr. Morgentaler has also misrepresented the Code of Ethics of the Canadian Medical Association by implying that it obliges doctors to provide abortions. It does not, nor does it require physicians to referfor abortions or other morally controversial procedures.

Finally, Dr. Morgentaler clearly applies his own moral views in his own medical practice. Upon what basis would he deny his colleagues the same freedom?

Notes: 1. Pelrine, Eleanor Wright, Morgentaler: The Doctor Who Couldn’t Turn Away. Canada: Gage Publishing, 1975, p. 29

Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons accommodates Christian physician

Sean Murphy*

The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons has accepted a suggestion from Dr. Stephen Dawson that has resolved complaints lodged against him. Dr. Dawson, a Christian physician who practises in Barrie, Ontario, was charged for professional misconduct because he refused to prescribe birth control pills to four unmarried women.

Dr. Dawson now posts a policy statement in his waiting room that includes a statement that he will not prescribe birth control pills to unmarried women nor Viagra to unmarried men, nor will he arrange for abortions. He will not offer further information about his religious convictions except in response to queries from patients. [Full text]

Who is “imposing morality” in Barrie?

Winnipeg, Manitoba
5 April, 2002

Sean Murphy, Administrator
Protection of Conscience Project

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is Canada’s publicly funded state radio and television broadcaster. The following was sent to the CBC in Winnipeg, Manitoba, asking whether or not it would be accepted for broadcast in the same region where Dr. Goldman’s editorial was aired. The CBC did not reply.

In an editorial broadcast on CBC Radio on 7 March, 2002, Dr. Brian Goldman criticized Dr. Frederick Ross of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Dr. Stephen Dawson of Barrie, Ontario. Dr. Ross had told his patients to stop smoking or find another doctor, while Dr. Dawson had refused to prescribe birth control pills or Viagra to single patients.

It does not seem that Winnipeg’s Dr. Ross believes that treating smokers is wrong, nor that it would be wrong to refer a smoker to another physician. His public statements do not preclude the possibility that he would treat smokers on an ad hoc basis (while standing in for an absent partner, for example).

In contrast, Dr. Dawson refuses to help single patients obtain birth control pills and Viagra under any circumstances, because he believes that by doing so he would be a party to immoral activity (i.e.,extramarital sex). Dr. Goldman was more sympathetic to this position, but criticized Dawson because he would not refer patients to other physicians who would prescribe the drugs.

Dr. Goldman recognized that his colleagues were acting for different reasons, but in drawing his conclusions he failed to maintain this distinction or recognize its significance. It is one thing to refuse to do something because it is inconvenient, difficult, frustrating, or pointless; it is quite another to refuse to do something because it is wrong. Grasping this distinction is the key to understanding the difference between the case of Dr. Ross, which does not seem to involve conscientious objection, and that of Dr. Dawson, which plainly does.

What some characterize as Dr. Dawson’s inflexibility actually illustrates the normal human reaction to a request to do something wrong. For example, a fifty year-old man who wanted to have sex with a fourteen year- old girl might be refused the use a friend’s apartment for that purpose. Nor would it be surprising if the unco-operative friend also refused to refer the lecher to a more ‘flexible’ apartment owner.

We see the same principle at work in criminal law. It is an offence not only to commit a crime directly, but to counsel, aid or abet a crime committed by someone else. Again: many people who engage in ‘ethical investment’ do so because they do not want to be implicated, even indirectly, in business practices to which they object for reasons of conscience, even if the practices aren’t illegal.

Now, no one is suggesting that consensual extramarital sex between adults is morally equivalent to criminal activity. But when Dr. Dawson refused to provide birth control for single patients, he reacted exactly as an ‘ethical investor’ might react if asked to purchase shares in a company that exploits child labour. He reacted exactly as an honest man would act were he asked to help someone lie or cheat. In other words, he acted as if extramarital sex really is wrong, and that its wrongness is not merely a matter of opinion or taste. That, in truth, is what has upset many of his critics; he has disturbed their repose in their comfortable pews.

Of course, one may criticize a physician for causing needless distress to a patient by offering a poorly articulated or inappropriate explanation of his moral position. But that was not Dr. Goldman’s concern. Instead, he complained that Dr. Dawson had acted upon his own beliefs.

In fact, Dr. Goldman does exactly the same thing. He believes that he does nothing wrong by providing single patients with contraceptives and Viagra, and he acts upon that belief by writing prescriptions. Why should Dr. Goldman be allowed to act upon his beliefs by writing prescriptions, while Dr. Dawson is forbidden to act upon his by refusing to do so? Is it because “the true north strong and free” is afraid of religious believers?

A physician who refuses, for reasons of conscience, to do something he believes to be wrong – falsifying a diagnosis, amputating a healthy limb, or prescribing contraceptives – does not force a patient to conform to his moral code. He is not “imposing morality.” To see what “imposing morality” really means, watch this month when the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons tries to force Barrie’s Dr. Stephen Dawson to give up his Christian convictions, on pain of professional excommunication.