Category: News

Health professionals participated in cruelty and torture

Medical, Military, and Ethics Experts Say Health Professionals Designed and Participated in Cruel, Inhumane, and Degrading Treatment and Torture of Detainees

New York, NY — An independent panel of military, ethics, medical, public health, and legal experts today charged that U.S. military and intelligence agencies directed doctors and psychologists working in U.S. military detention centers to violate standard ethical principles and medical standards to avoid infliction of harm. The Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers (see attached) concludes that since September 11, 2001, the Department of Defense (DoD) and CIA improperly demanded that U.S. military and intelligence agency health professionals collaborate in intelligence gathering and security practices in a way that inflicted severe harm on detainees in U.S. custody.

These practices included “designing, participating in, and enabling torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment” of detainees, according to the report. Although the DoD has taken steps to address some of these practices in recent years, including instituting a committee to review medical ethics concerns at Guantanamo Bay Prison, the Task Force says the changed roles for health professionals and anemic ethical standards adopted within the military remain in place. [Full report]

 

Reprehensible comments by Australian physician

Efforts to support freedom of conscience in health care in Australia have been tarnished  by comments made on Facebook posts by a physician identified only as “Dr. K” .  The physician became the subject of an investigation and disciplinary hearing after the posts were reported to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.  In addition to asserting that he refused to refer for abortions, the physician made several reprehensible remarks.   Among them was an assertion that a woman who dies from injuries incurred in a “back alley abortion” deserved to die “for trying to kill her own child.”  A physician’s group supporting freedom of conscience in health care issued a statement that it “vehemently disagrees with and utterly repudiates the idea and sentiment that any woman deserves any kind of harm for any reason whatsoever.”  [The Age]

American activist organization assists with push for expanded abortion law in Ireland

The Center for Reproductive Rights, an American activist organization based in New York, is assisting three women who are approaching the United Nations in an attempt to force Ireland to expand its newly-minted abortion law to include abortion for reasons of foetal abnormality likely to result in the death of the child soon after birth.  They are also supported by an Irish “Doctors for Choice” group. [Irish Central] [The Guardian]

Abortion law changes eyed as Dr Mark Hobart probed

The Sydney Morning Herald

Henrietta Cook

The Napthine government is not ruling out changes to Victoria’s abortion laws ahead of an investigation into a doctor who refused to give a couple an abortion referral because they wanted a boy.

The state government said it was interested in the outcome of the Medical Board of Victoria’s investigation into Mark Hobart, a pro-life doctor who has been accused of breaking the state’s abortion laws.

It comes as pro-life advocates run a concerted campaign to repeal a section of the Abortion Law Reform Act, which requires doctors who have a conscientious objection to abortion to refer a woman to someone with no such objection. [Full story]

San Diego health workers assured of conscience rights at White Mass

EWTN News

Anthony DeBellis and Carl Bunderson

At the San Diego diocese’s second annual White Mass, Bishop Cirilo Flores  reminded the health care workers in attendance that their profession is an  expression of their Catholic faith.

“Some of you in the health care profession are facing issues of conscience  rights. You have the right to live your faith,” he preached at the Oct. 12 Mass.  “We must assist the government always, but worshiping God does not just mean at  Mass or other celebrations within the four walls of the church.”

“You live your faith in the world. You have the right and the obligation to  your conscience, which is paramount, and the government should not try to  restrict or force regulations that violate your consciences.”

The Mass was sponsored by both St. Gianna Physicians’ Guild and  Culture of Life Family Services,  and drew Catholics from across the diocese.

The “White Mass” is named for the traditional white coats and uniforms worn  by medical personnel and is a special way to honor health care professionals. In  addition to physicians and nurses, the Mass honors hospital personnel,  pharmacists, mental health specialists, hospice workers, medical students,  pastoral care givers and others. Read more