Representative Timothy Jones has introduced House Bill 1430 in the Missouri House of Representatives. The bill largely replicates one that passed the House in 2013 but failed to pass the state Senate. It is a procedure-specific bill that provides protection of conscience for individuals and institutions.
Category: Law
New Jersey assisted suicide bill offers limited protection of conscience
Assembly Bill 2270 (2014) Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act
Some protection of conscience provisions are found in an assisted suicide bill introduced in the New Jersey legislature. While at first glance the definition of “health care professional” appears to provide protection for nurses, licensed practical nurses and others, the protection is limited by the definition of “participating in this act” or “participation in this act” to physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists and pharmacists.
Further, the definition of “participating in this act” or “participation in this act” excludes referral, so it would appear that the bill could be understood to require objectors to facilitate assisted suicide by referral.
Section 25 provides protection for health care facilities that will not allow assisted suicide on their premises for reasons of conscience or religion.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice issues injunction against federal regulation
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued an injunction against the U.S. federal government preventing it from enforcing a controversial regulation that would require Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged, a Catholic organization, to authorize their insurance company to provide coverage for contraceptives and surgical sterilization for their employees. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also issued an emergency stay for Catholic-affiliated groups challenging the contraceptive provision.[USA Today] Meanwhile, the President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote to President Obama asking that enforcement of the regulation be suspended until the Supreme Court has ruled on the issue in two cases it has agreed to hear.[USCCB]
Texas court grants injunction against federal mandate
A federal court in Houston, Texas, has granted an injunction to East Texas Baptist University and Houston Baptist University to prevent the enforcement of a controversial federal regulation that forces objecting employers to provide health insurance for birth control and surgical sterilization. The Universities argued that their religious freedom was unlawfully infringed by the regulation. [LifeNews]
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]