Category: Assisted suicide

New Brunswick health minister unaware of abortion-euthanasia connection

Project Letter to the Editor,
Fredericton Daily Gleaner

Sean Murphy*

Re: “Abortions won’t be available in all hospitals. “The Fredericton Daily Gleaner, 28 November, 2014

New Brunswick’s Minister of Health and the President of the province’s Medical Society both claim that physicians who refuse to provide abortion for reasons of conscience have an obligation to refer patients to colleagues who will. These assertions contradict the positions of the Canadian Medical Association and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick. Mr. Boudreau and Dr. Haddad also fail to recognize how such a policy would play out should assisted suicide and euthanasia be legalized. The Protection of Conscience Project intervened at the Supreme Court of Canada in the Carter case on precisely this point.1

Some influential academics have been attempting to force physicians to refer for abortion for years. They now claim that “because” physicians can be forced to refer for abortion, they should be forced to refer for euthanasia.2 If they have succeeded in converting Mr. Boudreau and Dr. Haddad to their point of view, it is not shared by physicians who refuse to be parties to killing, before or after birth.

The Canadian Medical Association expects physicians who decline to provide abortions for reasons of conscience to notify a patient seeking abortion “so that she may consult another physician.” There is no requirement for referral.3 The College of Physicians of New Brunswick suggests referral as a “preferred practice,” but acknowledges that referral may not be acceptable. Physicians may, instead, provide information about resources available to patients that they can use to obtain the service they want.4

Notes:

1.  Murphy, S. “Project Backgrounder Re: Joint intervention in Carter v. Canada.” Supreme Court of Canada, 15 October, 2014

2. Schuklenk U, van Delden J.J.M, Downie J, McLean S, Upshur R, Weinstock D. Report of the Royal Society of Canada Expert Panel on End-of-Life Decision Making (November, 2011) p. 70 (Accessed 2014-12-02)

3. Murphy S. “‘NO MORE CHRISTIAN DOCTORS.’ Appendix ‘F’- The Difficult Compromise: Canadian Medical Association, Abortion and Freedom of Conscience.” Protection of Conscience Project

4. Comment by College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick (November, 2002) Re: Declining to provide service on moral/religious grounds.

Good News and Bad News

Presentation to the Catholic Physicians’ Guild of Vancouver

North Vancouver B.C.

Sean Murphy *

Introduction

Thank you for inviting me to speak this evening. I have never been asked to give a three hour presentation to a group of physicians. You will be relieved to know that I have not been asked to do that tonight.

Those of you who saw the BC Catholic headline may have been expecting a “lecture on medical ethics,” but, thanks to Dr. Bright’s introduction, you now know that I am an administrator, not an ethicist, and that my topic is freedom of conscience in health care.

Protection of Conscience Project

The Protection of Conscience Project will be 15 years old this December. Although a meeting sponsored by the Catholic Physicians Guild provided the impetus for its formation, the Project is a non-denominational initiative, not a Catholic enterprise. Thus, if I mention the Catholic Church or Catholic teaching tonight, it will be as an outsider, as it were, though an outsider with inside information.

One more thing: the Project does not take a position on the acceptability of morally contested procedures like abortion, contraception or euthanasia: not even on torture. The focus is exclusively on freedom of conscience.

Context

Supreme Court of Canada, OttawaThe context for my presentation is provided by the passage of the Quebec euthanasia law1 and the pending decision in Carter v. Canada in the Supreme Court.2 Physicians are now confronted by the prospect that laws against euthanasia and physician assisted suicide will be struck down or changed. If that happens, what does the future hold for Catholic physicians and others who share your beliefs?

Will you be forced to participate in suicide or euthanasia?

If you refuse, will you be disadvantaged, discriminated against, disciplined, sued or fired?

Will you be forced out of your specialty or profession, or forced to emigrate if you wish to continue in it?

What about those who come after you? If you avoid all of these difficulties, will they?

In sum, will freedom of conscience and religion for health care workers be protected if assisted suicide and euthanasia are legalized? [Full Text]

Proposed Australian euthanasia bill may return in 2015

Medical Services (Dying with Dignity) Exposure Draft Bill 2014

The six member Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Australian Senate has issued a report recommending that Greens senator Richard di Natale reflect and consult further with experts concerning his euthanasia and assisted suicide bill.  The Committee also recommended that, if a revised bill is formally introduced, senators should be allowed a “conscience vote” on it. The bill has some provisions that provide some protection for objecting physicians, but they are problematic in some respects.

Lords back assisted dying providing judge gives final ruling

The Independent

Lewis Smith

Judges could routinely be given the power of life or death over patients who are determined to die to end their suffering.

Proposals to use judges as the final arbiters of who can be helped to die go some way to satisfying opponents to Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill. Lord Pannick QC proposed judicial oversight in amendments to the Bill which went before the House of Lords yesterday. The Lords, in the first Parliamentary vote on the Bill, gave it their approval.

Baroness Butler-Sloss, former head of the High Court Family Division, was among critics of the Bill who said giving judges a crucial role in assisted dying cases could provide the safeguards needed. [Full text]

When is a problem not a problem?

Refusing to dispense drugs to kill patients with psychiatric illness

Levenseinde Kliniek complains about uncooperative Dutch pharmacists

Sean Murphy*

When is a problem not a problem?In April, 2014, a complaint was made in the Netherlands that some Dutch pharmacists were refusing to provide euthanasia drugs.  The complaint led members of the Dutch Parliament from the green party, GroenLinks, to ask for a debate with health minister, and members of other Dutch political parties let it be known that they were also concerned.

 According to the news reports, over half the physicians at “the independent euthanasia clinic” had been refused lethal drugs, and 23 percent of 53 pharmacists surveyed reported that they sometimes refused to fill euthanasia prescriptions.  It was argued that pharmacists should not be able to refuse drugs needed to kill patients if two physicians had approved the euthanasia request.  However, while the law in the Netherlands permits physicians to provide euthanasia, it does not mention pharmacists. [Full Text]