Category: Law

Growing Intolerance Threatens Rights of Conscience of Health Care Workers

cnsnews.com

Lynn Wardle*

Around the world, policies and actions of many governments and governmental agencies are threatening rights of conscience of health care providers and employees.  These challenges and dangers seem to be increasing.

Recent times have seen numerous high-profile incidents in which nurses, doctors, hospital staff, government employees, and other health care workers are being pressured, required and forced to provide morally-controversial elective procedures (such as non-therapeutic abortions) despite their expressed moral objections to participating in such services. [Full text]

 

Nurses Cannot be Good Catholics

BMJ Blogs

John Olusegun Adenitire

It seems that if you are a nurse you cannot be a good Catholic.  Or, better: if you want to work as a nurse then you might have to give up some of your religious beliefs.  A relatively recent decision of the UK Supreme Court, the highest court in the country, seems to suggest so.  In a legal decision that made it into the general press (see here), the Supreme Court decided that two Catholic midwives could not refuse to undertake administrative and supervisory tasks connected to the provision of abortions.

To be sure, no one asked the nurses to directly assist in the provision of abortions.  The Abortion Act 1967 says that “No person shall be under any duty … to participate in any treatment authorised by this Act to which he has a conscientious objection.”  The Nurses argued that this provision of the Act should be understood widely.  Not only should they be allowed to refuse to directly assist in abortion services: they should also be entitled to refuse to undertake managerial and supervisory tasks if those were linked to abortion services.  The nurses’ employer was not impressed; neither was the Supreme Court which ruled that the possibility to conscientiously object only related to a ‘hands-on’ capacity in the provision of abortion services. . . [Full text]

 

Fleming Introduces Bill To Protect Pro-Life Health Care Providers

News Release

Congressman John Fleming

WASHINGTON, D.C. –Congressman John Fleming, M.D. released the following statement after introducing H.R. 4828, the Conscience Protection Act, which affords doctors, nurses, hospitals, and all health care providers the ability to choose not to provide abortions as part of their health care practice.

“As a family practice physician for over 30 years, I know for a fact that doctors and nurses are dedicated medical professionals uniquely qualified to assess the health and wellness needs of their patients. There is no room in the clinic for government discrimination, for Big Brother to force a health care provider to participate, in any way, in an abortion. My legislation offers common sense conscience protections for the front line of the medical profession. From clinician to hospital, from an HMO to insurance coverage, and from a student health plan to a physician in training, H.R. 4828 protects against forced participation in abortions and provides recourse for victims facing discrimination.”

Rep. Hartzler (R-MO), an original co-sponsor of  H.R. 4828 added, “Forcing a health care provider, church, private employer, or charity to violate their conscience is simply wrong. Caring professionals such as nurses and doctors should not be forced to perform abortions; nor should states, like California, force individuals to buy or provide insurance policies that pay for abortions. Our bill reinforces conscience protections already provided and offers a legal right of action to those who have been harmed by discriminatory or unlawful mandates. I am proud to co-sponsor this measure to stand up for those courageously standing by their convictions, to protect life, and to preserve the religious freedoms afforded to all of us.”

Background: There is an urgent need to pass the Conscience Protection Act. Longstanding, bipartisan, annual federal appropriations language, known as the Hyde/Weldon amendment, offers limited protections against discrimination for health care providers which do not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions. Despite the Hyde/Weldon amendment, nurses have been forced to participate in gruesome dismemberment abortions and/or instructed that performing an abortion is mandatory for training or employment purposes. Additionally, beginning in August 2014 the California Department for Managed Health Care (DMHC) issued a directive requiring that all insurance plans under the State’s authority immediately cover abortions. This means that California churches, religious charities, employers and individuals are forced to purchase abortion coverage via their health plans. In a second brazen move, the Golden State is now requiring that pregnancy care centers post signs instructing clients where they can obtain an abortion. Despite the fact that California’s actions violate the Hyde/Weldon pro-life policy, the current Administration has failed to resolve the matter. The Conscience Protection Act would protect pro-life health care providers from forced complicity in an abortion and would also provide a private right of action, enabling victims of governmental discrimination to seek redress in court.

Contact: Sarah Althouse (202-225-2777)

A Warning from Canada on Assisted Suicide: Physicians’ Conscience Rights at Stake

CNSNews.com

Lynn Wardle

Historically, assisted suicide (aiding a person to take his or her own life) was prohibited by the common law in Canada, as in all common law jurisdictions. Indeed, at common law suicide resulted in forfeiture of all goods and chattels of the suicide victim to the state.  A person who assisted a person to commit suicide also committed a felony.

Prohibitions against attempting suicide and assisting suicide were codified in Canada in 1892.  The attempting suicide law was challenged as infringing upon the protection for individual liberty in section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but the criminal prohibition against assisted suicide was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney General) in 1993.

The statutory prohibition of attempting suicide was repealed in Canada in 1972.  However, the criminal prohibition against assisting a person to commit suicide remained in Canada.

In February 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the prohibition of medical assistance in dying violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 5.  Now Parliament is working to codify the Carter ruling.

A special parliamentary committee was appointed to consider how to reform the law.  On February 25, 2016, the Special Joint Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying delivered to the Parliament of Canada its Report on “Medical Assistance in Dying: A Patient-Centred Approach, February 2016, 42nd Parliament, 1st Session.”

The Report contains 21 recommendations.  Some of them are unobjectionable, but some are troubling to some thoughtful observers and medical ethicists, and a few are dangerously disrespectful of the rights and consciences of marginalized populations. The Report evades, brushes aside, or bulldozes over some very serious ethical issues. . . [Full text]