New Brunswick health minister unaware of abortion-euthanasia connection

Project Letter to the Editor,
Fredericton Daily Gleaner

Sean Murphy*

Re: “Abortions won’t be available in all hospitals. “The Fredericton Daily Gleaner, 28 November, 2014

New Brunswick’s Minister of Health and the President of the province’s Medical Society both claim that physicians who refuse to provide abortion for reasons of conscience have an obligation to refer patients to colleagues who will. These assertions contradict the positions of the Canadian Medical Association and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick. Mr. Boudreau and Dr. Haddad also fail to recognize how such a policy would play out should assisted suicide and euthanasia be legalized. The Protection of Conscience Project intervened at the Supreme Court of Canada in the Carter case on precisely this point.1

Some influential academics have been attempting to force physicians to refer for abortion for years. They now claim that “because” physicians can be forced to refer for abortion, they should be forced to refer for euthanasia.2 If they have succeeded in converting Mr. Boudreau and Dr. Haddad to their point of view, it is not shared by physicians who refuse to be parties to killing, before or after birth.

The Canadian Medical Association expects physicians who decline to provide abortions for reasons of conscience to notify a patient seeking abortion “so that she may consult another physician.” There is no requirement for referral.3 The College of Physicians of New Brunswick suggests referral as a “preferred practice,” but acknowledges that referral may not be acceptable. Physicians may, instead, provide information about resources available to patients that they can use to obtain the service they want.4

Notes:

1.  Murphy, S. “Project Backgrounder Re: Joint intervention in Carter v. Canada.” Supreme Court of Canada, 15 October, 2014

2. Schuklenk U, van Delden J.J.M, Downie J, McLean S, Upshur R, Weinstock D. Report of the Royal Society of Canada Expert Panel on End-of-Life Decision Making (November, 2011) p. 70 (Accessed 2014-12-02)

3. Murphy S. “‘NO MORE CHRISTIAN DOCTORS.’ Appendix ‘F’- The Difficult Compromise: Canadian Medical Association, Abortion and Freedom of Conscience.” Protection of Conscience Project

4. Comment by College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick (November, 2002) Re: Declining to provide service on moral/religious grounds.

Looking back on 15 years: an anniversary

December, 1999 to December, 2014

Sean Murphy*

The Protection of Conscience Project celebrates its 15th anniversary in December, 2014. The formation of the Project was one of the eventual results of a meeting in Vancouver with British Columbian Senator Ray Perrault1 in the spring of 1999.

Senator Perrault wished to continue the work of retiring Liberal Senator, Stanley Haidasz, whose protection of conscience bill was stalled in the upper chamber.2 Among the experiences that spurred Senator Perrault to continue Senator Haidasz’s work was an encounter while going door to door during an election campaign. A nurse, in tears, told him that she had quit work after 15 years because she was required to participate in abortions, and could no longer do so in good conscience.

The meeting was sponsored by the Catholic Physicians Guild of Vancouver. Most participants were physicians or pharmacists. They spoke of their growing concern that they would be penalized or forced out of their professions if they continued to practise in accordance with their religious or moral beliefs. It became clear that these health care professionals had come to recognize the growing threat to their freedom to serve their patients without violating their personal and professional integrity. This was a key factor in the establishment of the Protection of Conscience Project nine months later.

While the meeting in 1999 was called by a Catholic organization, the Protection of Conscience Project is a non-profit, non-denominational initiative that does not take a position on the acceptability of morally contested procedures like abortion, contraception or euthanasia: not even on torture. The focus is exclusively on freedom of conscience and religion.

The Project is supported by an Advisory Board drawn from different disciplines and religious traditions, a Human Rights Specialist and an Administrator, all of whom serve without remuneration.3 It was conceived as an initiative rather than an organization, association or society; it has no ‘members’ or structures of an incorporated entity. This ensures that the time and energy that would otherwise be needed to maintain corporate structures is spent on more immediately practical work. The name originated in a comment made by Iain Benson, then Senior Research Fellow of Canada’s Centre for Cultural Renewal, now Senior Resident Scholar, Massey College, University of Toronto.4

“We don’t need another organization,” he said. “We need a project.”  [Full text]

 

 

Physicians in Croatia refusing to provide abortion

Sean Murphy*

It is reported that, of 27 licensed public hospitals in Croatia, five have stopped providing abortions because staff physicians are unwilling to perform them for reasons of conscience: Zagreb’s “Sveti duh” hospital, the general hospitals in Nasice, Vinkovci and Virovitica, and the general hospital in Knin.

There have been unsubstantiated accusations that some doctors in Zabok and Zagreb who claim a “conscientious objection” to performing abortions in public hospitals actually do provide them in illegally in private practice.  The accusation that some physicians who purport to be conscientious objectors in public hospitals will privately perform illegal abortions for payment has also been made in Italy.

Abortion activists insist that public hospitals should not employ physicians who object to abortion. [Hrvatsko Izdanje]

 

 

Good News and Bad News

Presentation to the Catholic Physicians’ Guild of Vancouver

North Vancouver B.C.

Sean Murphy *

Introduction

Thank you for inviting me to speak this evening. I have never been asked to give a three hour presentation to a group of physicians. You will be relieved to know that I have not been asked to do that tonight.

Those of you who saw the BC Catholic headline may have been expecting a “lecture on medical ethics,” but, thanks to Dr. Bright’s introduction, you now know that I am an administrator, not an ethicist, and that my topic is freedom of conscience in health care.

Protection of Conscience Project

The Protection of Conscience Project will be 15 years old this December. Although a meeting sponsored by the Catholic Physicians Guild provided the impetus for its formation, the Project is a non-denominational initiative, not a Catholic enterprise. Thus, if I mention the Catholic Church or Catholic teaching tonight, it will be as an outsider, as it were, though an outsider with inside information.

One more thing: the Project does not take a position on the acceptability of morally contested procedures like abortion, contraception or euthanasia: not even on torture. The focus is exclusively on freedom of conscience.

Context

Supreme Court of Canada, OttawaThe context for my presentation is provided by the passage of the Quebec euthanasia law1 and the pending decision in Carter v. Canada in the Supreme Court.2 Physicians are now confronted by the prospect that laws against euthanasia and physician assisted suicide will be struck down or changed. If that happens, what does the future hold for Catholic physicians and others who share your beliefs?

Will you be forced to participate in suicide or euthanasia?

If you refuse, will you be disadvantaged, discriminated against, disciplined, sued or fired?

Will you be forced out of your specialty or profession, or forced to emigrate if you wish to continue in it?

What about those who come after you? If you avoid all of these difficulties, will they?

In sum, will freedom of conscience and religion for health care workers be protected if assisted suicide and euthanasia are legalized? [Full Text]

Top nursing group backs Navy nurse who wouldn’t force-feed at Guantánamo

Miami Herald

Carol Rosenberg

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba

One of America’s leading nursing organizations is trying to save the U.S. Navy career of an officer, a nurse like them, who refused to force-feed hunger strikers this summer.

In a private letter, the American Nurses Association wrote Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel last month arguing that the nurse should not be punished for making an independent ethical decision. The Physicians for Human Rights set up a conference call for Wednesday with the Navy nurse’s attorney and the advocacy group’s president to disclose the letter, which has been obtained by the Miami Herald.

It says: “These actions are resulting from the nurse’s expressing an ethical objection to participating in the force-feeding of detainees who are engaging in a form of protest at Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp.” The Pentagon has not responded.

The Miami Herald disclosed the crisis of conscience over the summer after a Syrian hunger striker heard the lieutenant declare he could no longer force-feed, told his lawyer about it, and the prison confirmed it happened.

Commanders cut short the deployment of the male nurse — who has never been publicly identified — and returned him to his base in New England. His boss ordered that a Board of Inquiry be formed to consider whether to discharge him from military service. . . [Full Text]