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
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]