Category: Commentary

Protect doctors’ right to choose

QMI AGENCY

It’s all about choice. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that suffering Canadians have the right to choose to end their life through assisted suicide.

But doctors must also have the right to choose  –  to choose whether they are a part of this process or not.

A recent article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal showcases several points worth repeating. They report that a majority of palliative care physicians actually don’t envision assisted suicide as part of their work. . . [Full text]

 

What is plagiarism? Saskatchewan College of Physicians provides “teachable moment” for students, teachers

Sean Murphy*

High school and post-secondary teachers plagued by the problem of plagiarism can thank the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan for providing them with a “teachable moment.”

Saskatchewan’s College of Physicians has published a draft policy intended to force objecting physicians to do what they believe to be wrong, including participation in euthanasia, assisted suicide, and abortion.  The policy is virtually a word-for-word copy of the Model Conscientious Objection Policy proposed by euthanasia and abortion activists – without attribution.

Bryan Salte, speaking for the College, denied that the College document was taken from the Model Conscientious Objection Policy, though he did admit that it was a “significant source.”

Now Saskatchewan students have a comeback for teachers who award a “0” for plagiarism because they have copied most of a paper from a “significant source” on the internet.  They can quote Mr. Salte.

On the other hand, Saskatchewan teachers might take this as a “teachable moment”  to explain that it is unethical to pass off someone else’s work as one’s own – even if one likes it and agrees with it entirely and the real authors are pleased with the results.

It might even be a good topic for a class on ethics in medical research.

Why conscience (or lack of it) is in the news

 Globe and Mail

Lorna Dueck

How about a conversation on what’s happening to the human conscience? Pick any variety of headline these days and you’ll often discover that the news behind it happened because somebody’s conscience evaporated.

How could the consciences of 13 young men smart enough to navigate Dalhousie University’s dentistry school not awaken to the way they were denigrating women? How could these students, posting on a social network with a billion users, not care that judgment was imminent? Why was there just one whistle-blower among them?

The best or worst of our collective conscience is usually behind any story that goes viral today. Who is the guardian, the advocate, the instructor, the guide for our conscience? Family, social norms, religion, school and the media are all systems that come quickly to mind when I think about conscience-setting. We need to value sources that teach us to care about conscience, because conscience will always affect how we treat each other. . . [Full Text]

 

Keep the state out of the killing rooms of the nation

 National Post

Barbara Kay

Commentary following last Friday’s Supreme Court decision on assisted suicide has filled the pages of this and other Canadian publications. Opinion for and against the ruling has been intelligently debated. But I have yet to see a column that focuses directly on my own concerns, so here is my two cents.

I am firmly in the anti-euthanasia camp, as my last two columns have indicated. There is no question in my mind that once euthanasia is permitted to those capable of self-determination, “equality” activists will demand – and get – euthanasia for those who also suffer terribly, but are incapable of assenting to their own physician-enabled deaths. That has been proven to be the case in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Some readers assume that this also puts me in the anti-assisted-suicide camp as well. That is not the case. I find I have a more ambivalent position on this question. I support the right of any individual who finds life unbearable for whatever reason to take his own life. I therefore cannot in conscience refuse someone yearning to die, but incapable of carrying out his wish, the right to ask for assistance in achieving that goal. . . [Full Text]

 

A watchdog in need of a leash

Ontario College of Physicians manipulates consultation process

New Release

For immediate release

Protection of Conscience Project

It appears that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is manipulating its consultation process to support a controversial draft policy intended to force doctors to do what they believe to be wrong.

The College is intervening in a Discussion Forum about Professional Obligations and Human Rights (POHR), apparently to discredit critics and defend the policy. The Forum is supposed to be used by the public to provide feedback on the policy, and to post emails and written submissions the College receives from the public.

But on 29 January the College posted a comment accusing Professor Margaret Somerville of misrepresenting its policy in a National Post column. The comment included a link to a letter to the National Post from College President, Dr. Carol Leet.

Not content with interfering in the consultation by posting its own statement, the College impersonated anonymous forum participants and used its statement to reply to comments supporting Professor Somerville’s “modest proposal.”

Someone at the College seems to have had second thoughts about impersonating participants, because the replies were revised a couple of days later to identify the College as the author. But the purported correction of participant responses still violates College policy.

Sean Murphy, Administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project, thinks College officials are interfering in the consultation because they are afraid that more people will begin to realize what the draft policy really means.

“In her National Post column, Professor Somerville succinctly critiqued the draft policy, and offered a reasonable alternative,” he said. “If Dr. Leet disagreed, she was within her rights to write a letter to the editor.”

“But,” he added, “interfering in the consultation process is unacceptable.”

Murphy observed that the College is supposed to be the watchdog protecting the public and profession from unethical conduct.

“It seems this watchdog needs a leash.”

For details, see A watchdog in need of a leash: Ontario College of Physicians manipulates consultation process