Category: News

Canadian nurse forced out for refusing to participate in euthanasia

Lifesite News

Pete Baklinski

PALMER RAPIDS, Ontario, June 14, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — A Canadian nurse no longer has her job helping the sick and the elderly after she was told that she must either assist patients who wanted to kill themselves using the country’s new euthanasia law, or resign.

Mary Jean Martin, a Registered Nurse who worked in middle-management as a Homecare Coordinator in Ontario, said she became a nurse in the late 1980s to help the “vulnerable and the struggling,” not to be a link in a chain that would ultimately lead to a patient’s death.

“Can you imagine being a nurse and being told that you have to help kill someone? That’s so against the philosophy of nursing and it’s so against the heart of the healthcare person,” she told LifeSiteNews in an exclusive interview. . . [Full text]

 

Swedish midwife turns to European Court of Human Rights

News Release

Alliance Defending Freedom

STRASBOURG, France – A Christian midwife filed her application with the European Court of Human Rights Wednesday against Sweden. Elinor Grimmark had to seek work in another country because she refused to participate in abortions. Because the Swedish courts have failed to recognize her freedom of conscientious objection, she is asking the European court to hear her case, Grimmark v. Sweden.

“The desire to help bring life into this world is what leads many midwives and nurses to enter the medical profession in the first place. Instead of forcing desperately needed midwives out of a profession, governments should look to safeguard the moral convictions of medical staff,” said ADF International Director of European Advocacy Robert Clarke. “Ellinor’s case could determine whether people who value life at all stages of development will be able to pursue a medical career in the future. Sweden has failed to protect this midwife’s fundamental right to freedom of conscience guaranteed by international law.”

Three different medical clinics had refused to employ Grimmark because she would not assist with abortions in light of her convictions about the dignity of all human life. On April 12, the Swedish Labour Court of Appeal refused to protect her freedom of conscience and instead found that Grimmark’s rights had not been violated.

The court required her to pay the local government’s legal costs, amounting to more than 150,000 euros. ADF International filed an expert brief in support of her case with the Swedish court, highlighting the protection for freedom of conscience that exists under international law.

“I chose the midwifery profession because I wanted to help bring life into this world,” explained Grimmark during a media background briefing in Strasbourg Wednesday. “I cannot understand why the Swedish government refuses to accommodate my conscientious convictions. I am now working in Norway, where my conscience is respected, but no one can explain why Sweden cannot do the same.”

ADF International is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith.
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Ontario conscience rights case goes to court

Catholic Register

Michael Swan

TORONTO – In historic Osgoode Hall, 17 lawyers along with eight banker boxes of documents were arrayed three benches deep in front of Justice Herman J. Wilton-Siegel, Justice Richard A. Lococo and Justice Wendy W. Matheson before lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos made his opening arguments on behalf of the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada and in favour of the Charter right of doctors to practice medicine according to their conscience.

The CMDS, supported by the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians Societies, Canadian Physicians for Life and the Catholic Civil Rights League, is in Ontario Superior Court of Justice June 13-15 challenging the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario over its “effective referral” policy. The policy forces doctors who object to abortion, birth control and assisted suicide to write an “effective referral” for the services to a willing and available doctor. Intervening on the side of the provincial regulatory body governing the practice of medicine is the Attorney General of Ontario.

 

Doctors challenge Ontario policy requiring referral for services that clash with morals

2-year-old policy was established under guidance of a working group and subjected to external consultation

CBC

The Canadian Press

The debate over Ontario doctors’ right to refuse to provide medical services that clash with their moral or religious beliefs is headed to court.

A group of five doctors and three professional organizations is challenging a policy issued by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario that requires doctors who have a moral objection to the treatment sought by a patient to refer them to another medical professional who can provide the service. . . [Full text]

Doctors challenge Ontario policy on assisted-death referrals

Physicians go to court over requirement to send patients to other doctors if they don’t want to provide medical assistance in dying.

Toronto Star

Alex Mckeen

A group of doctors has mounted a legal challenge to an Ontario policy that requires them to refer patients to other doctors for medical assistance in dying.

The Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada, the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Societies and Canadian Physicians for Life, along with five individual physicians, are arguing at Ontario Superior Court this week that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects them from being required to refer patients elsewhere if they don’t want to help those patients end their lives.

They are fighting a policy of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario that says doctors must provide an “effective referral” if they refuse to help a patient end their life due to “reasons of conscience or religion.” . . . [Full text]