Month: August 2014

Citizens’ initiative calls for right to conscientious objection in health care

Helsinki Times

Over 18,000 Finns have expressed their support for a citizens’ initiative calling for a right to health care professionals to refuse to participate in performing abortions on grounds of personal or religious convictions.

The initiative will be presented to the Parliament for discussion if it accumulates a minimum of 50,000 statements of support. An earlier bill on abortion only received marginal support beyond the ranks of the Christian Democrats. . . . [Full Text]

Medical association vows to protect conscience rights

The Catholic Register

Michael Swan

The Canadian Medical Association has passed a new policy on conscience rights that supports a doctor’s right to choose whether or not to help patients commit suicide in jurisdictions where it may become legal.

“If the law were to change, then we would support the right of physicians to follow their conscience. It (the new policy) doesn’t say we favour a change in the law,” said Dr. Jeff Blackmer, the CMA’s executive director of ethics. The CMA stance opposing euthanasia remains in place. “Our position is still that Canadian physicians should not participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide,” Blackmer said. The CMA will come to the defence of doctors who refuse to participate in euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide if the law changes to make those practices legal. . . [Full Text]

Euthanasia clinic reprimanded for death of stroke victim

Dutch News

A special clinic set up to help people whose doctors do not support euthanasia has been reprimanded for failings when it helped an elderly woman who did not want to live in a nursing home to die. The euthanasia monitoring committee said the clinic’s experts had failed to exercise proper care when carrying out their duties. [Full text]

Doctor-assisted death appropriate only after all other choices exhausted, CMA president says

Canada.com

Sharon Kirkey

Doctor-hastened death would only be appropriate after all other reasonable choices have been exhausted, says the head of the country’s largest doctors’ group.

Dr. Chris Simpson, newly installed president of the Canadian Medical Association, made the comments in advance of a landmark Supreme Court of Canada hearing expected to add fuel to the emotional end-of-life debate gaining urgency across Canada.

Simpson said there are enough doctors in Canada willing to perform doctor-hastened death, if the federal ban outlawing euthanasia were lifted.

But doctors first need safeguards to protect the vulnerable and a strategy to urgently shore up palliative care “so that this is not seen as a first, or second or even third choice, but a choice that’s appropriate for people after all other reasonable options are exhausted,” he said. [Full text]

Woman makes own suicide a part of campaign to change law

Sean Murphy*

An 85 year old woman living on Bowen Island, British Columbia, killed herself with a drug overdose in the presence of her husband because she had developing dementia.  She planned to make her death a political statement in favour of the legalization of assisted suicide, writing an extensive blog article explaining her decision and sending a letter to the editor of the Vancouver Sun for posthumous publication.    Symptoms of dementia were reportedly progressing and she decided to kill herself before the condition became too advanced.  [Vancouver Sun]