Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code

The following post is from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the state regulatory authority for the practice of medicine in the province:

The College’s Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code policy is currently being reviewed. This policy sets out physicians’ legal obligations under the Ontario Human Rights Code (the Code) and the College’s expectations that physicians will respect the fundamental rights of those who seek their medical services. It aims to assist the profession in understanding its existing legal and professional obligations, and provide physicians with guidance about how to comply with these obligations in everyday practice.

View the current policy

To assist with this review, we are inviting feedback from all stakeholders, including members of the medical profession, the public, health system organizations and other health professionals on the current policy. Comments received during this preliminary consultation will assist the College in updating the policy. When a revised draft is developed, it will be recirculated for further comment before it is finalized by Council.

Submissions must be received by 5 August, 2014.

See the full notice on the College website.  It includes a “quickpoll” survey asking visitors to vote for or against freedom of conscience for physicians.

Medical marijuana and conscience rights

The Interim

Paula Kosalka

Some Canadian physicians are anxious that regulatory changes will pressure doctors to prescribe marijuana. Dr. William Pope, the registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba, told the Winnipeg Free Press in January that the college is worried that federal reforms will lead more patients to ask doctors for marijuana. “As far as most of us are concerned, there is really no appropriate prescribing,” he said.

Physicians are now permitted to dispense marijuana with the approval of the province. Patients applying for marijuana access no longer have to submit personal health information to Health Canada. It is also easier for individuals with less serious conditions to get medical marijuana. Pot users will not be able to grow their own marijuana anymore, but will have to buy it from commercial growers licensed by the federal government. On April 1, the new rules came into effect. According to the Winnipeg Free Press, officials predict that the number of cannabis users across the country could rise from 37,000 to 450,000 by 2024 as a result. – [Full text]

Catholic physicians who want to follow their conscience must ’emigrate,’ UK expert says

LifeSiteNews

Hilary White

LONDON, May 30, 2014  – Physicians who have strong moral objections to prescribing abortifacient drugs, including the morning after pill, should leave England, a meeting of the Catholic Medical Association was told.

This is not due to “discrimination” against conscientious Catholic physicians, but rather is a “total conflict of culture,” in the new post-sexual revolution social order, one that substantially rejects the Christian outlook on sex.

On May 17, the CMA’s annual conference heard Charlie O’Donnell, a consultant in emergency and intensive care medicine, say that “orthodox” Catholics training in obstetrics and gynecology would have such huge obstacles they would have little choice but to “emigrate.” Physicians are routinely faced with requests for artificial contraceptives, artificial procreation treatments or Viagra for “gay couples,” and there is simply no room left in the profession for the Christian worldview in medicine in Britain. . . [Full text]

Doctors who follow church teaching told to emigrate

The Tablet

Elena Curti

Catholic doctors who follow church teaching on sexual ethics cannot work as gynaecologists in Britain, the Catholic Medical Association (CMA) conference was told.

Charlie O’Donnell, a consultant in emergency and intensive care medicine, said the best advice he could give to an “orthodox” Catholic wishing to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology would be to “emigrate”.

Dr O’Donnell told the conference at Ealing Abbey, west London, on 17 May that a Catholic training to be a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology would soon find he or she had conscientious objections to such tasks as prescribing artificial contraceptives, giving unmarried couples fertility treatment or Viagra to gay couples. . . [Full text]

Polish physicians and medical students declaration of faith and freedom of conscience

On 5 March, 2014, a Declaration of Faith for Catholic doctors and medical students was published in a letter by Dr. Wanda Półtawska, a friend of Pope John Paul II.  It was subsequently signed by over 3,000 people

The Declaration was carved onto two stone tablets and deposited at Jasna Gora on 25 May, 2014, during a pilgrimmage of health care workers to honour the canonization of John Paul II.  It closes with an affirmation that Catholics, including physicians, “have a right to perform their professional activities in accordance with their conscience.”  [Deklaracja Wiary website]

Deklaracja Wiary

Declaration of Faith*

Lekarzy katolickich i studentów medycyny w przedmiocie płciowości i płodności ludzkiej
Of Catholic doctors and students of medicine, on the sexuality and fertility of human beings
Nam – lekarzom – powierzono strzec życie ludzkie od jego początku…  We, doctors, entrusted to protect human life from its conception until its natural end;
1. WIERZĘ w jednego Boga, Pana Wszechświata, który stworzył mężczyznę i niewiastę na obraz swój. 1. BELIEVE in one God, the Lord of the Universe, who created man and woman in his own image.
2. UZNAJĘ, iż ciało ludzkie i życie, będąc darem Boga, jest święte i nietykalne:
– ciało podlega prawom natury, ale naturę stworzył Stwórca, – moment poczęcia człowieka i zejścia z tego świata zależy wyłącznie od decyzji Boga.Jeżeli decyzję taką podejmuje człowiek, to gwałci nie tylko podstawowe przykazania
Dekalogu, popełniając czyny takie jak aborcja, antykoncepcja, sztuczne zapłodnienie, eutanazja, ale poprzez zapłodnienie in vitro odrzuca samego Stwórcę.
2. PROCLAIM that the human body and life, being gifts from God, are sacred and inviolable and that,a. The body is subject to the laws of nature but is formed by The Creator;b. The moments of human conception and dying offer us, by God’s grace, the opportunity to participate in God’s love, creation and passion. If a person acts by their own will to negatively alter conception and bring about death, then he or she not only violates the basic commandments of the Decalogue, committing acts such as abortion, euthanasia, contraception, artificial insemination, and/or in vitro fertilisation, but rejects The Creator as well.
3. PRZYJMUJĘ prawdę, iż płeć człowieka dana przez Boga jest zdeterminowana biologicznie i jest sposobem istnienia osoby ludzkiej. Jest nobilitacją, przywilejem, bo człowiek został wyposażony w narządy, dzięki którym ludzie przez rodzicielstwo stają się współpracownikami Boga Samego w dziele stworzenia – powołanie do rodzicielstwa jest planem Bożym i tylko wybrani przez Boga i związani z Nim świętym sakramentem małżeństwa mają prawo używać tych organów, które stanowią sacrum w ciele ludzkim. 3. ACCEPT the truth that human sexuality is a gift of God and provides the method by which human beings are ennobled with the privilege to become “co-creators with God in the work of creation” through parenthood. The call to parenthood is God’s plan, and only those bound with Him by the holy sacrament of marriage have the ability to rightly use these gifts, which are sacred, in the human body.
4. STWIERDZAM, że podstawą godności i wolności lekarza katolika jest wyłącznie jego sumienie oświecone Duchem świętym i nauką Kościoła i ma on prawo działania zgodnie ze swoim sumieniem i etyką lekarską, która uwzględnia prawo sprzeciwu wobec działań niezgodnych z sumieniem. 4. ACKNOWLEDGE that the foundation for the dignity and freedom of the Catholic doctor is exclusively his or her conscience, enlightened by the Holy Spirit and informed by the teaching of the Church, and that he or she has the right to act according to said conscience and in keeping with medical ethics that have established the doctor’s right to oppose all acts that are against one’s conscience.
5. UZNAJĘ pierwszeństwo prawa Bożego nad prawem ludzkim – aktualną potrzebę przeciwstawiania się narzuconym antyhumanitarnym ideologiom współczesnej cywilizacji, – potrzebę stałego pogłębiania nie tylko wiedzy zawodowej, ale także wiedzy o antropologii chrześcijańskiej i teologii ciała. 5. RECOGNISE the priority of God’s law over the law of nations and,a. The current need for providing alternatives to the anti-human ideologies and dictates imposed by some contemporary societies.b. The need to constantly deepen not only professional knowledge but also the knowledge of Christian anthropology and theology of the body.
6. UWAŻAM, że – nie narzucając nikomu swoich poglądów, przekonań – lekarze katoliccy mają prawo oczekiwać i wymagać szacunku dla swoich poglądów i wolności w wykonywaniu czynności zawodowych zgodnie ze swoim sumieniem. 6. BELIEVE that, while not imposing their beliefs and opinions, Catholics, including doctors and students, have a right to perform their professional activities in accordance with their conscience.
Wysokim uznaniem darzymy tych lekarzy i członków służby zdrowia, którzy w pełnieniu swojego zawodu ponad wszelką ludzką korzyść przenoszą to, czego wymaga od nich szczególny wzgląd na chrześcijańskie powołanie. Niech niezachwianie trwają w zamiarze popierania zawsze tych rozwiązań, które zgadzają się z wiarą i prawym rozumem oraz niech starają się dla tych rozwiązań zjednać uznanie i szacunek ze strony własnego środowiska. Niech ponadto uważają za swój zawodowy obowiązek zdobywanie w tej trudnej dziedzinie niezbędnej wiedzy, aby małżonkom zasięgającym opinii, mogli służyć należytymi radami i wskazywać właściwą drogę, czego słusznie i sprawiedliwie się od nich wymaga. Likewise we hold in the highest esteem those doctors and members of the nursing profession who, in the exercise of their calling, endeavor to fulfill the demands of their Christian vocation before any merely human interest. Let them therefore continue constant in their resolution always to support those lines of action which accord with faith and with right reason. And let them strive to win agreement and support for these policies among their professional colleagues. Moreover, they should regard it as an essential part of their skill to make themselves fully proficient in this difficult field of medical knowledge. For then, when married couples ask for their advice, they may be in a position to give them right counsel and to point them in the proper direction. Married couples have a right to expect this much from them.
Paweł VI, Humanae vitae, 27. Pope Paul VI, Encyclical Humanae Vitae, 27
 *Translation by Matercare International