Category: News

COLF urges Catholics to speak up for physicians’ conscience rights

The Catholic Register

Deborah Gyapong

OTTAWA – The Canadian Organization for Life and Family (COLF) is urging Catholics to “speak up” as the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons reviews is policy on conscience rights.

“In 2008, a similar policy review by the College very nearly resulted in a serious threat to conscience rights within the practice of medicine in Ontario,” COLF warned. Public input has been welcomed, COLF said, encouraging people insist the college protect conscience rights.

“No physician should be forced to act against his or her conscience by providing health care services (for example: contraception, abortion, sterilization, etc.) contrary to their moral and religious beliefs,” COLF said. [Full text]

Botched execution sparks outcry in US

Bioedge

Xavier Symons

Another botched execution in the USA has reignited debate over the death penalty. Arizona man Joseph Rudolph Wood took almost two hours to die after being injected with the drugs midazolam and hydromorphone. The two drugs are a new barbiturate combination being trialled in a number of US states.

According to witnesses, Wood gasped for air hundreds of times before succumbed to the drugs. “It was very disturbing to watch…like a fish on shore gulping for air”, said reporter Troy Hayden. “I counted 660 times that he gasped,” said Arizona Republic journalist Michael Kiefer.

Just two months ago BioEdge reported on a similar botched execution in Oklahoma.

Shortly after the execution, Arizona governor Jan Brewer issued a statement in which she ordered a full review of the execution process.

She was nevertheless adamant that the execution had been lawful and did not involve undue pain: “One thing is certain, however, inmate Wood died in a lawful manner and by eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer” her statement said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona issued a statement calling for a moratorium on executions. “What happened today to Mr. Wood was an experiment that the state did its best to hide,” Executive Director Alessandra Soler said.

The new drugs being used are intended to replace others that pharmaceutical companies now refuse to sell to US correctional facilities. The drug midazolam causes unconsciousness in a patient, while hydromorphone shuts down breathing and induces cardiac arrest.

cclicense-some-rightsThis article is published by Xavier Symons and BioEdge.org under a Creative Commons licence. You may republish it or translate it free of charge with attribution for non-commercial purposes following these guidelines. If you teach at a university we ask that your department make a donation to Bioedge. Commercial media must contact us for permission and fees. Some articles on this site are published under different terms.

Access to Birth Control Isn’t Just About Doctors

Ottawa Citizen

Kelly Grindrod , Sherilyn Houle

Earlier this summer, a debate was sparked by the experience of Kate Desjardins, an Ottawa woman who went to a walk-in clinic to renew her birth control prescription. She was handed a letter informing her that three of the clinic physicians were not prescribing birth control because of their “religious values.”

At the time, most media outlets noted that this meant she was forced to find another physician. But she had a choice that almost no one is talking about.

Her pharmacist could have also written the renewal prescription for her. . . [Full text]

Will Doctors Be Forced to Kill?

First Things

Wesley J. Smith

The wailing and gnashing of teeth in some quarters over the modest Hobby Lobby decision has me worried. Apparently, many on the political port side of the country believe that once a favored public policy has been enacted, it immediately becomes a “right” that can never be altered or denied. More, once such a “right” is established for the individual, others should have the duty to ensure access – even at the cost of violating their own religious consciences.

If such thinking prevails, medical professionals could be forced to participate in the taking of human life, for example in abortion, assisted suicide, and (given the research trends in regenerative medicine) providing treatments derived from the intentional destruction of human embryos or fetuses.

That certainly seems to be the direction in which the ACLU wishes to take the country. Recently, the ACLU of Washington State began trolling for potential clients to sue medical professionals or facilities that refused to participate in certain legal procedures or transactions based on religious objection:

Have you or members of your family been denied reproductive health care or end-of-life services by a religiously based medical facility? The ACLU believes that everyone in Washington has the right to receive health care that is not restricted by the religious beliefs of others.

[Full text]

Medical aid in dying: Court challenge

News Release

Living with Dignity, Physicians’ Alliance

MONTREAL, July 17, 2014 /CNW Telbec/ – As announced when Bill 52, An Act Respecting End-of-Life Care, was adopted, the citizen movement Living with Dignity (LWD) and the Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia (the Alliance), representing together over 650 physicians and 17,000 citizens, have today filed a lawsuit before the Superior Court of Quebec in the District of Montreal.

The lawsuit requests that the Court declare invalid all the provisions of An Act Respecting End-of-Life Care that deal with “medical aid in dying”, a euphemism used to describe euthanasia. This Act not only allows certain patients to demand that a physician provoke their death, but also grants physicians the right to cause the death of these patients by the administration of a lethal substance.

The Alliance and LWD are challenging the constitutionality of those provisions in the Act which are aimed at decriminalizing euthanasia under the euphemism “medical aid in dying”. Euthanasia constitutes a culpable homicide under the Criminal Code. It is a subject-matter which is at the core of the exclusive federal legislative power in relation to criminal law and Quebec therefore does not have the power to adopt these provisions.

In addition, the impugned provisions unjustifiably infringe the rights to life and to security of patients guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. They further infringe the right to the safeguard of the dignity of the person, which is also protected by the Quebec Charter.

In view of the gravity of the situation and the urgent need to protect all vulnerable persons in Quebec, the Alliance and LWD request an accelerated management of the case in order to obtain a judgement before the expected coming into force of the Act on December 10, 2015.

Sources: The citizen network Living with Dignity and the Physicians’ Alliance against euthanasia .