Month: August 2021

COVID Vaccination and Conscience Debate Intensifies

Amid a spike of cases and concerns about the Delta variant, some U.S. bishops oppose a religious exemption, yet ethics experts caution against mandates.

National Catholic Register

Judy Roberts

An increase in COVID-19 cases sparked by the Delta variant has sharpened the divide among Catholics in the United States over whether individuals should be required to inoculate against the coronavirus or have the right in conscience to decline the currently available vaccines.   

Amid a wave of new vaccine mandates being rolled out by businesses and institutions in response to the spike, Catholics who morally object to the vaccines are finding themselves at odds with those who think the ethical obligation to protect public health should be the foremost consideration.  . . continue reading

Bioethics and Conscience

International Conference

European Institute of Bioethics

Bioethics and Conscience

Monday, October 4, 2021
UCLouvain – Faculty of Medicine – Brussels Campus
Scientific committee :

Prof. Benoît Beuselinck – KU Leuven – UZ Leuven
Prof. Louis-Léon Christians – UC Louvain
Prof. Willem Lemmens – University of Antwerp

60 € – The conference registration fee includes full access to the conference, lunch break and coffee breaks. Free registration for students.

Registration Form

The University of Manitoba’s repulsive pantomime of justice against a conservative student

The National Post

Colby Cosh

Today’s column has to start with a tip of the cap to my colleague Tyler Dawson, who has delivered a fine account of an extraordinary Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench case that was decided last week. It concerns a struggle between medical student Rafael Zaki and the University of Manitoba’s Max Rady College of Medicine, which expelled Zaki in the summer of 2020 after about a year’s worth of disciplinary procedures.

Zaki’s offence was a total of three Facebook posts that attracted anonymous complaints from 18 fellow students: two were written in support of the right to bear arms, and the third was an extended, uncompromising anti-abortion monologue that seems to have touched on just about every pro-life argument ever devised, irrespective of consistency or convincingness. . . continue reading

Manitoba medical student expelled over ‘pro-gun and pro-life’ Facebook posts wins court ruling

Rafael Zaki said he was expelled for his conscientious and religious beliefs. The judge said the university appeared biased in its decision

The National Post

Tyler Dawson

A Manitoba medical student who was expelled after failing to satisfactorily apologize for his controversial views on guns and abortion has been granted a new adjudication of his expulsion.

Rafael Zaki, a Coptic Orthodox student at the University of Manitoba who was supposed to graduate in 2022, posted three items on his Facebook page in February 2019. He was expelled in August 2019

One year later, after losing two appeals within the university system, Zaki asked Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench to review the decision made by the University Discipline Committee. Zaki said he was expelled “for holding conscientious and religious beliefs that abortion is harmful.” . . . continue reading

Ruling blocking HHS ‘transgender mandate’ called ‘victory for conscience’

Catholic Review

CNA Staff

WASHINGTON (CNS) — A U.S. District Court judge’s Aug. 9 ruling to block the Biden administration’s mandate that doctors and hospitals perform gender-transition procedures despite their own moral or medical objections is “a victory for common sense, conscience and sound medicine.”

That is the view of Luke Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, based in Washington. He is the lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the case.

“Today’s ruling protects patients, aligns with current medical research, and ensures doctors aren’t forced to violate their religious beliefs and medical judgment,” he said about the ruling in Franciscan Alliance v. Becerra. . . continue reading