Category: News

Religious care homes refusing patients the right to die

CTV News

Kendra Mangione

The right to die isn’t guaranteed in Canada yet, but the issue is already causing arguments in B.C.

The federal government’s controversial bill on assisted dying was passed in the House of Commons on Tuesday, and will now face the criticism of the Canadian Senate.

Bill C-14 outlines eligibility for assisted dying, limiting the option to consenting adults suffering from serious and incurable diseases and disabilities.

The bill followed a Supreme Court ruling last year that adults should have the right to seek medical help to end their lives if their suffering is intolerable. Under the Supreme Court ruling, a federal ban on assisted dying will be formally lifted on June 6.

Less than a week before the ban is lifted, the right to die is already causing conflicts in B.C.

The owners of some religion-based care homes have already decided they will not permit residents to decide when to end their lives, if it goes against their religion. . . [Full Text]

Patients to be moved out of Covenant Health facilities for assisted deaths

Publicly funded, Catholic health care organization, opposes physician-assisted dying

CBC News

Michelle Bellefontaine

Patients at hospitals and continuing-care facilities run by Covenant Health will be transferred to other Alberta health-care facilities if they seek a physician-assisted death, the province says.

Covenant Health is a Catholic organization that runs publicly funded hospitals in Edmonton and continuing-care facilities across the province. In February, Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith said Covenant Health would not allow patients to end their lives with the help of a doctor in its facilities.

Associate health minister Brandy Payne confirmed Monday that physicians and other health-care workers will not be forced to take part in this procedure if it goes against their beliefs. She said procedures are being set up to move patients, if necessary. . . . [Full Text]

Project asks Canadian MPs, Senators to stop coercion in homicide, suicide

News Release

For Immediate Release

Protection of Conscience Project

“If it is ‘unacceptable’ for Members of Parliament to use physical force against each other, surely it is “unacceptable” for state institutions or others to use the force of law to compel people to be parties to inflicting death upon others, and to punish those who refuse.”

That is the message over 400 Canadian Members of Parliament and Senators returning to Ottawa will find on their desks in a letter from the Protection of Conscience Project.  The letters began to arrive Friday morning and should be waiting for MPs and Senators returning to Parliament to resume sitting on Monday.

The Project is proposing an amendment to the government’s Bill C-14, which is intended to allow medical and nurse practitioners to provide euthanasia and assisted suicide in accordance with the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada in Carter v. Canada (Attorney General).

“Writing directly to individual legislators is a very unusual step,” said Sean Murphy, Administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project.  The letter was sent because of the gravity of the issue, and because the Project’s submission on Bill C-14 – like many others – was not distributed to members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights before it concluded its deliberations on the bill.

“Ironically, perhaps,” states the letter, “what the Protection of Conscience proposes is not a protection of conscience amendment.”

“Instead, the amendment is limited to the criminal law, which is strictly and fully within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada.”

In making the argument that the criminal law should prohibit coerced participation in homicide and suicide, the letter refers to the conduct of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the House of Commons on 18 May, which caused an uproar in the House and delayed debate on Bill C-14.

“The delay caused by the Prime Minister has made it possible to make this one last effort to reach legislators,” said Murphy, “and his conduct has enabled the Project to make its point in a very practical way.”

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Contact:
Sean Murphy, Administrator
protection@consciencelaws.org

Templeton Prize Acceptance Address

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Beloved friends. The news that I had won this prize almost rendered me speechless, an event that would have been unprecedented in the history of the rabbinate. But it has left me moved, humbled, thankful, and deeply motivated, because to me the award is not just about what has been done but also about how much there is still to do.
Templeton Prize Acceptance Address

I want to express my deep sense of gratitude to and kinship with the Templeton family . . .

. . .I know full well that the credit is not mine, but that of the Jewish tradition to which I have tried to give voice, and to its twin imperatives: to be true to our faith and a blessing to others regardless of their faith. People sometimes ask me how I became a speaker, and I answer: Simple. I married the best listener in the world. So my thanks to Elaine, and to our children – Josh, Dina and Gila – and their wonderful families who gave me so much support, and to Joanna, Dan and Debby, my wonderful team. And thanks ultimately to God, who believes in us so much more than we believe in Him.

I said that to me the prize is less about recognition of the past than about responsibility for the future, and it is to that future I turn tonight. This is a fateful moment in history. Wherever we look, politically, religiously, economically, environmentally, there is insecurity and instability. It is not too much to say that the future of the West and the unique form of freedom it has pioneered for the past four centuries is altogether at risk. . . . continue reading

Indonesia Approves Castration for Sex Offenders Who Prey on Children

New York Times

Joe Cochrane

JAKARTA, Indonesia — The Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, signed a decree on Wednesday authorizing chemical castration for convicted child sex offenders and requiring those released on parole to wear electronic monitoring devices.

The new punishment comes in response to the brutal gang rape and murder in April of a 14-year-old girl on her way home on the island of Sumatra. Seven teenage boys were each sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime, which prompted national outrage and revived previous calls for chemical castration as a punishment against child sex offenders. . . [Full Text]