Category: Assisted suicide

Vatican summons Belgian order to Rome over euthanasia policy

Catholic Herald

Simon Caldwell

Vatican officials want to hear in person why Brothers of Charity board members insist on allowing the euthanasia

The Vatican is planning to summon members of a Belgian nursing order to Rome to explain why they are refusing to ditch a policy which allows doctors to kill psychiatric patients in Church-run homes.

Senior Vatican officials want to hear in person why board members of the Organisation of the Brothers of Charity insist on allowing the euthanasia of non-terminally ill patients in the face of a top-level order to reverse the policy. . . [Full text]

 

Conscientious objection: Can a hospital refuse to provide treatment?

Baylor College of Medicine

Claire Horner

Canada recently legalized medical assistance in dying (MAiD), which allows patients to receive a lethal drug that they can self-administer, or be administered a lethal drug by an authorized clinician with consent of the patient. As provinces and territories work to create and clarify legal guidelines for providing MAiD, many Catholic hospitals have refused to offer it, citing opposition to physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in Catholic moral teaching.

This controversy surrounding institutional conscience-based refusals raises an important question: Should a health care institution have the right to refuse to provide a particular treatment for conscience-based reasons? . . . [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.

‘Utterly outrageous’: Belgian Catholic care group denounced by Church over euthanasia plans

Christian Today

James MacIntyre

A furious row has broken out within the Catholic Church over the Belgian Brothers of Charity, who are refusing to comply with a Vatican order to stop providing euthanasia for the people it cares for.

The UK-based Catholic priest Alexander Lucie-Smith has described the behaviour of the Brothers as ‘utterly outrageous,’ and pointed out the crucial fact that the order is lay-run.

In a statement released in Flemish, French and English, the organisation said it ‘continues to stand by its vision statement on euthanasia for mental suffering in a non-terminal situation’ and goes on to make the incendiary claim that it ‘is still consistent with the doctrine of the Catholic Church. We emphatically believe so.’ . . . [Full text]

 

Physicians support assisted death for mature minors, but not mental illness

CMAJ

Lauren Vogel

Doctors attending a session on medical aid in dying at the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) General Council supported the use of advance directives and allowing mature minors to access assisted death. However, they split on opening up the service to otherwise healthy people with mental illness.

In a poll, 83% said they would support the use of advance directives to request medical aid in dying in cases where a person was otherwise unable to give consent. Some 69% would support opening the service to “mature minors,” including cases in which a guardian might request assisted death for a terminally ill infant, for example. However, after roundtable discussions, less than half (46%) of doctors polled said they would support assisted death on the basis of mental illness alone. . .  [Full text]