Federal legislation permitting the killing of people who meet the criteria for Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) has challenged most healthcare professionals to carefully consider where they morally stand on causing someone’s death. While many healthcare providers may feel it is against their values to participate in euthanasia, we have all been asked or will be asked at some point about euthanasia by a patient or their family. . . . In general, frontline conscientious objectors have been respected and accommodated. But, what about those behind the scenes? . . .[Full text]
Category: Ethical Commentary
Health professionals’ pledge rejects any form of participation in or condoning torture
Physicians for Human Rights is sponsoring a Health Professionals’ Pledge Against Torture that includes statements that signatories will never “participate or condone” torture and support colleagues who “resist orders to torture or inflict harm.” It also commits signatories to insist that their professional associations support those facing pressure “to participate or condone torture and ill-treatment.”
What is noteworthy is that the pledge is not limited to simply refusing to torture someone, but is a pledge against participation (which would include forms of facilitation like referral) and against condoning the practice.
Replace “torture” with commonly morally contested procedures and it becomes obvious that the ethical position taken by Physicians for Human Rights vis-à-vis torture is identical to the position of many health care professionals who object to practices like euthanasia or abortion for reasons of conscience.
Conscientious objection: Can a hospital refuse to provide treatment?
Baylor College of Medicine
Canada recently legalized medical assistance in dying (MAiD), which allows patients to receive a lethal drug that they can self-administer, or be administered a lethal drug by an authorized clinician with consent of the patient. As provinces and territories work to create and clarify legal guidelines for providing MAiD, many Catholic hospitals have refused to offer it, citing opposition to physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in Catholic moral teaching.
This controversy surrounding institutional conscience-based refusals raises an important question: Should a health care institution have the right to refuse to provide a particular treatment for conscience-based reasons? . . . [Full text]