Category: Assisted suicide

Doctors grapple with organ donation question

National Post

Sharon Kirkey

As the nation awaits legalized doctor-assisted death, the transplant community is grappling with a potential new source of life-saving organs  –  offered by patients who have chosen to die.

Some surgeons say every effort should be made to respect the dying wishes of people seeking assisted death, once the Supreme Court of Canada ruling comes into effect next year, including the desire to donate their organs.

But the prospect of combining two separate requests  –  doctor-assisted suicide and organ donation  –  is creating profound unease for others. Some worry those contemplating assisted suicide might feel a societal pressure to carry through with the act so that others might live, or that it could undermine struggling efforts to increase Canada’s mediocre donor rate. . . [Full text]

The doctors’ dilemma

National Post (Editorial)

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario recently voted to require doctors who refuse to provide certain services for reasons of conscience to provide referrals to doctors who will.

The new policy, enacted over the objections of the Ontario Medical Association, is a marked departure from the old. It paints medicine as a battlefield, with equal and opposite freedoms repeatedly colliding. Thus the college graciously agrees to limit physicians’ freedom of conscience in order to safeguard patients’ right of access.

The problem is that “right of access” is a college creation, while freedom of conscience is enshrined in the Charter of Rights. Doctors make informed decisions about treatment constantly. If they did not refuse to prescribe some treatments and suggest others, they would not be professionals. A patient storming into an office demanding amputation to treat a broken arm does not have “right of access.” . . . [Full text]

In the assisted-dying debate, where’s the compassion for doctors?

Edmonton Journal (Editorial)

What happens when those we trust most with human life are suddenly in charge of death?

Earlier this month, the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, ruling against a family who wanted their mother’s care home to stop spoon-feeding her.

It’s difficult to fault either party.

Margaret Bentley, 83, neither speaks nor recognizes her relatives, and her family is certain the former dementia-ward nurse, now in the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease herself, would not want her life to continue in her current state.

A living will written by Bentley in 1991 outlined as much in no uncertain terms: “If at such a time the situation should arise that there is no reasonable expectation of my recovery from extreme physical or mental disability, I direct that I be allowed to die and not be kept alive by artificial means or ‘heroic measures.’ ”

But Bentley’s health-care workers refused to deliberately withhold food. They argued that by opening her lips to receive food when touched with a spoon, Bentley was consenting to being fed, and thus to being kept alive. The courts agreed. . . [Full text]

Uniform coercive policy urged for all Canadian physicians

Project submission to the Saskatchewan College of Physicians discloses details

News Release

Protection of Conscience Project

The Protection of Conscience Project has charged that a controversial policy proposed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan is unjustified.

The policy, Conscientious Refusal, will require all Saskatchewan physicians who object to a procedure for reasons of conscience to facilitate the procedure by referring patients to a colleague who will provide it, even if it is homicide or suicide.

The Project noted that the burden of proof was on the policy’s supporters to prove that the policy is justified and that no less oppressive alternatives are available.  “They failed to do so,” states the submission. “The policy should be withdrawn.”

“Conscientious Refusal fails to recognize that the practice of medicine is a moral enterprise, that morality is a human enterprise, and that physicians, no less than patients, are moral agents” said the Project, describing the policy as “profoundly disrespectful of the moral agency of physicians.”

Using documents provided by the College, the Project’s submission traces the origin of the policy to a meeting in 2013. The meeting was apparently convened by the Conscience Research Group (CRG), activist academics whose goal is to compel physicians unwilling to provide morally contested procedures like abortion or euthanasia to refer patients to someone willing to do so. They presented a coercive model policy that had been drafted to achieve that goal.

According to a CPSS memo, College attendees included Saskatchewan Associate Registrar Bryan Salte, Dr. Gus Grant, Registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia, Andréa Foti of the Policy Department of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and a representative of the Collège des Médecins du Québec. They agreed upon a text virtually identical to the CRG model.

In May, 2014, Bryan Salte proposed the policy to Registrars of the Colleges of British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario, who, he reported, agreed to review it and consider implementing it. He later urged all of the Registrars of Colleges of Physicians in Canada to adopt the coercive policy or one very like it, noting that “physician assisted suicide, in particular” would be present a challenge for administrators.

“Any College that is an outlier, either because it has adopted a different position than other Colleges, or because it has not developed a policy, will potentially be placed in a difficult position,” he warned.

The CPSS memo discloses that, unbeknownst to physicians, officials in several provinces have been making plans behind closed doors to suppress freedom of conscience in the medical profession.

“One of the disturbing aspects of the story,” notes the submission, “is what appears to be a pattern of concealment, selective disclosure, and false or misleading statements that all serve the purpose of supporting the policy.”

The Project’s most recent submission to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario identifies a similarly troubling pattern, describing briefing materials supplied to College Council in support of its controversial policy as “not only seriously deficient, but erroneous and seriously misleading.”

Project Submission to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan (2015)

Project Submission to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (2015)

Unacceptable to force doctors to participate in assisted dying against their conscience: CMA head

National Post

Sharon Kirkey

No physician in the country should be forced to play a role in any aspect of assisted dying against their moral or religious beliefs — including referring patients to another doctor willing to help them die, the Canadian Medical Association says.

Legalized physician-assisted death will usher in such a fundamental change in practice “we simply cannot accept a system that compels physicians to go against their conscience as individuals on something so profound as this,” CMA president Chris Simpson said in an exclusive interview.

The unanimous Supreme Court of Canada ruling legalizing assisted dying would not compel doctors to help patients end their lives when the historic decision takes effect next year.

But the justices were more guarded on the issue of mandatory referral, saying the Charter rights of both patients and doctors will need to be reconciled.

Dr. Simpson said that many doctors who conscientiously object to assisted dying feel the very act of referral “is contrary to their personal ethics or moral or religious beliefs.” . . . [Full text]