Category: Proposed Laws

Doctors, advocacy groups address proposed law protecting those who object to assisted dying

CBC News

Holly Caruk

Dr. Frank Ewert wants protection from having to help a patient die — but Dying with Dignity Canada doesn’t want that to happen at the cost of patients receiving full access to end-of-life options.

“When I started back a number of years ago and vowed to follow the Hippocratic oath, I meant it. It was very profound to me, it resonated with my core beliefs, that I would always respect life, that I would do nothing to harm a patient,” Ewert told a legislative committee on Monday evening. . . [Full text]

 

Critics call bill aimed to protect health workers unwilling to offer assisted death ‘one-sided’

CBC: The Current

Interviewer/host: Piya Chattopadhyay

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Bill 34 is being introduced by the Manitoba government to protect conscience rights for health care professionals, so that health care providers would not be required to participate in assisted suicide.

VOICE 2: While I cannot participate in assisted suicide for a couple of reasons. The first is I made a vow as a medical student 40 years ago that I wouldn’t kill patients, okay? And I’m not willing to cross that line.

PC: It has been less than 18 months now since medically assisted dying became legal in Canada. And health care workers are still adapting to that paradigm change. We just heard part of a video produced by the Coalition for Health Care and Conscience. It’s a national umbrella organization of religious groups, and as you heard it is lobbying for Bill 34 a proposed piece of legislation in Manitoba that was drafted to help health care workers with conscientious objections to helping end patients’ lives. Here’s Manitoba’s health minister Kelvin Goertzen. . . [Full episode transcript]

 

 

Proposed legislation to protect health professionals who object to assisted dying called ‘one-sided’

Dying with Dignity Canada says Bill 34 doesn’t protect patients’ rights to access assisted dying

CBC news

Holly Caruk

A bill that would protect Manitoba health professionals’ rights to refuse assisted dying services and protect them from reprisals is being called redundant and one-sided.

Bill 34, which was introduced in May and hasn’t yet reached a second reading in the House, would ensure health professionals cannot be compelled to go against their own religious or ethical beliefs when it comes to providing medical assistance in dying (MAID) services.

It would also ban any professional regulatory body from requiring members to participate in medically assisted deaths, which were made legal by the Supreme Court in 2015. . . [Full text]

 

Victoria, Australia: Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2017

Comment

Sean Murphy*

A  euthanasia and assisted suicide bill introduced in the Parliament of Victoria, Australia, includes several provisions that pertain to legal protection of freedom of conscience.  Concerning these:

  • Freedom of conscience provisions concern only individual practitioners, not health care facilities.  Freedom of conscience presumably includes acting upon moral or ethical beliefs grounded in religious teaching.
  • Statements of principles that require encouragement and promotion of an individual “preferences and values,” that people should be “supported” in conversations about treatment and care and “shown respect” for their beliefs, etc. can be interpreted to require affirmation of moral or ethical choices.
    • While the principles may have no direct legal effect, they could be cited by professional regulatory authorities against those who refuse to encourage, promote, or affirm the acceptability of euthanasia and assisted suicide.
  • Registered medical practitioner is not defined, but all would be encompassed by the definition of health care practitioner.
  • All health care practitioners are protected by Section 7.
  • Section 7(b) allows for refusal to participate in the request and assessment process and Section 7(c) protects refusal to be present when lethal medication is administered, but Section 7
    • does not include protection for refusal to participate in the administration of lethal medication, by, for example, inserting an IV line in advance, or by other means
    • does not include protection for refusal to participate in dispensing lethal medication
  • “Participate” in Section 7(b) is broad enough to encompass referral.  However, the bill would be improved by providing protection against coerced indirect participation in administering or dispensing lethal medication.
  • The bill does not require falsification of death certificates, but does require the falsification of the cause of death in the registration of deaths.  The bill includes no protection for a registrar who, for reasons of conscience, is unwilling to falsify a registry entry.

U.S. bishops, other Catholic groups back conscience protection bill

Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and 32 other organizations have signed a joint letter of support for the Conscience Protection Act of 2017.

The bill, which has House and Senate versions, is intended to close loopholes that ignore the conscience rights of medical professionals on abortion, according to the signed letter.

“Even many ‘pro-choice’ Americans realize that the logic of their (opponents’) position requires them to respect a choice not to be involved in abortion,” said the letter, dated Sept. 6 and addressed to senators. . . [Full text]