Category: News

Vivisectionist recalls his day of reckoning

Doctor put conscience on hold until war atrocity confession time came

The Japan Times

Jun Hongo

Donning the crisp, Imperial Japanese Army khakis gave Ken Yuasa a sense of power, as a superior being on a mission to liberate China from Western colonialism.

“The uniform made me feel incredibly sharp. Once I put it on, I was convinced Japan would triumph,” recalled the wartime surgeon, who was deployed to Changzhi (then Luan) in Shanxi Province in February 1942.

His fervor, and the nationalist indoctrination of his schooling, quickly subordinated any sense of conscience. By his second month at Luan’s army hospital, Yuasa was aggressively performing vivisections on live Chinese prisoners, and diverting dysentery and typhoid bacillus to Japanese troops for use in biological warfare.

“I was in denial of the things I did in Luan until the war was over. It was because I had no sense of remorse while I was doing it,” Yuasa, 90, told The Japan Times in a recent interview.

“We believed that the orders from the top were absolute. We performed the vivisections as ordered. We erased any sense of culpability by doing so, even though what we did was horrendous.” [Full text]

 

Dawson’s licence revoked for sexual misconduct

Physician who refused birth control to unmarried had sex with patient

 Sean Murphy*

On 9 May, 2005, the Discipline Committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario revoked Dr. Dawson’s registration as a physician for having engaged in the sexual abuse of a married female patient. He was ordered to appear before a panel to be reprimanded and to pay costs to the College in the amount of $2,500.00. A  summary of the judgement is available on the College website. [Full text]

Planned Parenthood and “Anti-Choice” Rhetoric

News Release

Protection of Conscience Project

Planned Parenthood Alberta is recycling the accusation that physicians who object to abortion may “scare” patients with “misinformation” or “impose their moral beliefs.” This smear may be unfairly applied to conscientious objectors who follow the guidelines of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA).

The CMA advises physicians to inform a patient when their personal morality would influence their recommendations or practice, and to advise patients of their objections to abortion. The CPSA expects physicians to provide information to patients seeking abortion so that they can “make informed decisions on all available options for their pregnancies, including termination.”

On the other hand, objecting physicians can hardly be expected to present morally controversial procedures as morally uncontroversial, or in such a way as to indicate that they approve of them or are indifferent to them. Moreover, the information they reasonably believe necessary to permit the patient to make a truly “informed decision” may be more comprehensive or in other respects different from what Planned Parenthood is accustomed to provide its clients.

An interest group like Planned Parenthood might well stigmatize such discussion as ‘moralizing’ and providing ‘misinformation’. Partisan polemics of this sort do not provide a basis for sound policy making.

Planned Parenthood Alberta is compiling a list of what it calls “anti-choice doctors.” If it is desirable to help patients find physicians who share their outlook on moral issues, it would be preferable for doctors to identify themselves, perhaps through the College of Physicians and Surgeons or professional associations.

But if Planned Parenthood persists in its plan to identify “anti-choice doctors”, it should include in its list the names of physicians who believe that their colleagues should be forced to provide or facilitate morally controversial procedures.

Related: Planned Parenthood and “Anti-Choice Rhetoric” (commentary)

Canadian Pharmacists Association queried by Catholic bishops

The Canadian Pharmacists Association has been asked by the Canadian Organization for Life and Family to ensure that pharmacists disclose to patients the fact that the morning-after pill can cause the death of the early embryo by preventing implantation. COLF, which addresses life issues for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, also asked the Association about its policy on freedom of conscience for pharmacists who do not wish to dispense the morning-after pill. [COLF letter]

Project Letter to the Western Standard

14 May, 2004

Sean Murphy, Administrator
Protection of Conscience Project

Should doctors be forced to abandon their faith?  by Terry O’Neill  draws attention to the problem of freedom of conscience in health care.

A bit of history is instructive. The first protection of conscience clause debated in the House of Commons was introduced by M.P. Robert McCleave as an amendment to the Omnibus Bill that legalized abortion in Canada in 1969. Mr. McCleave believed that abortion should be  legalized, but also believed that ‘freedom of choice’ should be extended to health care workers.

Compare Mr. McCleave’s notion of ‘choice’ with that espoused by Joyce  Arthur. Speaking for the “Pro-choice Action Network,” she refuses to  respect the choices of health care professionals who do not wish to participate morally controversial procedures. She seems to believe that freedom of conscience is a problem to be solved by abolishing it, at least  in the case of those who don’t agree with her. Arthur’s position is doubly ironic, since Henry Morgantaler justified his defiance of Canadian abortion law in a 1970 article titled, A Physician and His Moral Conscience.1

Referral is not a satisfactory solution for many physicians who have grave moral objections to a procedure. Objecting physicians hold  themselves morally culpable if they facilitate an abortion by referring a  patient for that purpose. Nor is this an unusual view. Consider the controversy in Canada over the deportation and torture of Maher Arar. This suggests that few believe that one can avoid moral responsibility for a wrongful act by arranging for it to be done by someone else.

Certainly, Joyce Arthur does not consider abortion to be a wrongful act. However, she has not explained why others should be forced to abide by her moral views.

Unfortunately, between the writer’s desk and publication, a couple of factual errors were introduced into the story.

In the first place, the Project followed the case from the outset, and the student was provided with the same kind of service extended to others in similar situations. His relationship with the Project has been cordial,  but it is incorrect to describe me as “a friend of the would-be doctor.” We have never met.

More important, the final paragraph attributes to me statements that I did not make. While I am, nonetheless, in agreement with a number of the points made, I did not suggest that a devout Muslim doctor might refuse to  treat women, nor make any statement to a similar effect.

It would be most unfortunate if this falsely attributed statement were  to contribute to the already adverse social pressures experienced by Muslims in North America. Muslim health care workers and students are welcome to contact the Protection of Conscience Project. One of the  Project advisors is Dr. Shahid Athar, a regent and former vice-president of the Islamic Medical Association of North America and the Chair of its       Medical Ethics Committee

Notes

1. The article appeared anonymously in The Humanist. Quoted in Pelrine, Eleanor wright, Morgantaler: The Doctor Who Couldn’t Turn Away. Canada: Gage Publishing, 1975, P. 79