Category: Law

California’s assisted-dying loophole: Some doctors won’t help patients die

San Francisco Chronicle

Bob Egelko

Judy Dale died of cancer in her San Francisco home in September, in agony, after being denied the pain-relieving medication she might have received under the state’s aid-in-dying law that had taken effect three months earlier.

A lawsuit by her children will determine whether UCSF Medical Center, where Dale first went for treatment, was responsible for her suffering by allegedly concealing its oncologists’ decision not to provide life-ending drugs to patients who ask for them. More broadly, their suit illuminates the inner workings of a law that confers new rights on terminally ill patients, but few obligations on their health care providers.

The law allows a medically competent adult who has six months or less to live to ask a doctor to prescribe lethal medication. The patient, not the doctor, must be the one to administer the drug. Two doctors must agree on the terminal diagnosis, and the patient must make two requests, at least 15 days apart, before receiving the medication.

But doctors and hospitals are not required to take part in the process or to refer the patient to someone who will grant the request. Hospitals can prohibit their physicians from prescribing life-ending medication, something that medical centers affiliated with the Catholic Church and some secular hospitals have done. And a doctor who has decided not to prescribe the drugs is not required to disclose that fact until the patient asks for them. . . [Full text]

 

New Zealand Attorney General apparently confused on issue of referral for euthanasia

Sean Murphy*

Chris Finlayson, the Attorney General of New Zealand, has issued a report on a euthanasia bill that has been introduced by Member of Parliament David Seymour, the leader and only sitting member of ACT New Zealand.

This bill includes protection of conscience provisions that were considered by Mr. Finlayson in his report (paragraphs 62-65).  The Attorney General stated that the provisions require an objecting medical practitioner to refer a patient to another physician for euthanasia, and acknowledged that this infringed freedom of conscience guaranteed by New Zealand’s Bill of Rights.  However, he believed this to be consistent with the Bill of Rights:

I consider that the limit is justified for the effective functioning of the regime for assisted dying created by the Bill.  In particular, I consider that the requirement to identify another medical practitioner is necessary to meet the objective of the Bill and is the most minimal impairment of the right possible.(para. 64)

The Attorney General appears to be confused on this point.

In fact, Section 7(2) of the bill requires only that the patient be told that he may contact the “SCENZ Group” (euthanasia coordination/facilitation service) to obtain the name of a euthanasia practitioner or physician willing to assist in the process.  It is up to the patient to initiate contact with the SCENZ Group, and the bill does not require a physician to assist the patient to do so.  This does not amount to referral to a euthanasia practitioner.

The distinction is important because physicians who object to euthanasia for reasons of conscience often refuse to refer patients for the procedure on the grounds that doing so would make them parties to homicide.  This issue is the focus of an important constitutional challenge in Canada, where the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is attempting to compel unwilling physicians to make effective referrals for euthanasia and assisted suicide.

llinois Judge Suspends Abortion Notification Law

Measure forces pregnancy centers to promote abortion

Church Militant

Stephen Wynne

ROCKFORD, Ill. (ChurchMilitant.com) – In a setback for mandatory abortion referral laws, a federal judge is halting implementation of an Illinois notification measure.

U.S. District Court Judge Frederick Kapala has temporarily suspended enforcement of SB1564, a measure that compels pro-life pregnancy care centers and doctors to publicize abortion to their clients. In his ruling, Kapala warned that SB1564, an amendment to the Illinois Healthcare Right of Conscience Act, may threaten religious liberty and free speech rights.

SB1564 went into effect January 1. In response, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates joined with 18 Illinois pregnancy care centers to challenge it in court. . . [Full text]

 

Ontario doctors fight law forcing them to help kill their patients

The Interim

Five doctors and three doctors’ groups were in an Ontario court June 13-15 arguing a policy from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) violates their Charter rights to freedom of conscience and religion. The CPSO forces doctors to refer patients for euthanasia and abortion, even when it violates their conscience or religion. Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government intervened on behalf of the college.

The 2015 CPSO policy requires that doctors who object on religious or conscience grounds to providing certain procedures such as abortion and euthanasia must give patients seeking these practices an effective referral. This means directly handing over a patient to another colleague who will follow through with an abortion or euthanasia request. The doctors argue this implicates them in the immoral practices to which they object. . . . [Full text]

 

Understanding Freedom of Conscience

Policy Options

Brian Bird*

The year 2017 marks the 150th anniversary since Confederation and the 35th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. By virtue of a court case in Ontario that might go all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada, 2017 may also be the year when freedom of conscience — until now a dormant Charter freedom — is brought to life.

In June, Ontario’s Divisional Court heard arguments in a case that challenges a policy in Ontario obliging physicians to provide an effective referral if they conscientiously object to performing a medical procedure. An effective referral means that the objecting physician must promptly direct the patient to a physician who will perform the procedure. In May, two of the lawyers representing the side that is challenging the policy outlined their position in Policy Options. In essence, they argue that the policy unduly infringes the freedom of conscience and religion of physicians who refuse on the basis of those Charter grounds to participate in medical procedures. . . [Full text]