Tag: physicians

Medical marijuana and conscience rights

The Interim

Paula Kosalka

Some Canadian physicians are anxious that regulatory changes will pressure doctors to prescribe marijuana. Dr. William Pope, the registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba, told the Winnipeg Free Press in January that the college is worried that federal reforms will lead more patients to ask doctors for marijuana. “As far as most of us are concerned, there is really no appropriate prescribing,” he said.

Physicians are now permitted to dispense marijuana with the approval of the province. Patients applying for marijuana access no longer have to submit personal health information to Health Canada. It is also easier for individuals with less serious conditions to get medical marijuana. Pot users will not be able to grow their own marijuana anymore, but will have to buy it from commercial growers licensed by the federal government. On April 1, the new rules came into effect. According to the Winnipeg Free Press, officials predict that the number of cannabis users across the country could rise from 37,000 to 450,000 by 2024 as a result. – [Full text]

Polish physicians and medical students declaration of faith and freedom of conscience

On 5 March, 2014, a Declaration of Faith for Catholic doctors and medical students was published in a letter by Dr. Wanda Półtawska, a friend of Pope John Paul II.  It was subsequently signed by over 3,000 people

The Declaration was carved onto two stone tablets and deposited at Jasna Gora on 25 May, 2014, during a pilgrimmage of health care workers to honour the canonization of John Paul II.  It closes with an affirmation that Catholics, including physicians, “have a right to perform their professional activities in accordance with their conscience.”  [Deklaracja Wiary website]

Deklaracja Wiary

Declaration of Faith*
Lekarzy katolickich i studentów medycyny w przedmiocie płciowości i płodności ludzkiej
Of Catholic doctors and students of medicine, on the sexuality and fertility of human beings
Nam – lekarzom – powierzono strzec życie ludzkie od jego początku…  We, doctors, entrusted to protect human life from its conception until its natural end;
1. WIERZĘ w jednego Boga, Pana Wszechświata, który stworzył mężczyznę i niewiastę na obraz swój. 1. BELIEVE in one God, the Lord of the Universe, who created man and woman in his own image.
2. UZNAJĘ, iż ciało ludzkie i życie, będąc darem Boga, jest święte i nietykalne:
– ciało podlega prawom natury, ale naturę stworzył Stwórca, – moment poczęcia człowieka i zejścia z tego świata zależy wyłącznie od decyzji Boga.Jeżeli decyzję taką podejmuje człowiek, to gwałci nie tylko podstawowe przykazania
Dekalogu, popełniając czyny takie jak aborcja, antykoncepcja, sztuczne zapłodnienie, eutanazja, ale poprzez zapłodnienie in vitro odrzuca samego Stwórcę.		 2. PROCLAIM that the human body and life, being gifts from God, are sacred and inviolable and that,a. The body is subject to the laws of nature but is formed by The Creator;b. The moments of human conception and dying offer us, by God’s grace, the opportunity to participate in God’s love, creation and passion. If a person acts by their own will to negatively alter conception and bring about death, then he or she not only violates the basic commandments of the Decalogue, committing acts such as abortion, euthanasia, contraception, artificial insemination, and/or in vitro fertilisation, but rejects The Creator as well.
3. PRZYJMUJĘ prawdę, iż płeć człowieka dana przez Boga jest zdeterminowana biologicznie i jest sposobem istnienia osoby ludzkiej. Jest nobilitacją, przywilejem, bo człowiek został wyposażony w narządy, dzięki którym ludzie przez rodzicielstwo stają się współpracownikami Boga Samego w dziele stworzenia – powołanie do rodzicielstwa jest planem Bożym i tylko wybrani przez Boga i związani z Nim świętym sakramentem małżeństwa mają prawo używać tych organów, które stanowią sacrum w ciele ludzkim. 3. ACCEPT the truth that human sexuality is a gift of God and provides the method by which human beings are ennobled with the privilege to become “co-creators with God in the work of creation” through parenthood. The call to parenthood is God’s plan, and only those bound with Him by the holy sacrament of marriage have the ability to rightly use these gifts, which are sacred, in the human body.
4. STWIERDZAM, że podstawą godności i wolności lekarza katolika jest wyłącznie jego sumienie oświecone Duchem świętym i nauką Kościoła i ma on prawo działania zgodnie ze swoim sumieniem i etyką lekarską, która uwzględnia prawo sprzeciwu wobec działań niezgodnych z sumieniem. 4. ACKNOWLEDGE that the foundation for the dignity and freedom of the Catholic doctor is exclusively his or her conscience, enlightened by the Holy Spirit and informed by the teaching of the Church, and that he or she has the right to act according to said conscience and in keeping with medical ethics that have established the doctor’s right to oppose all acts that are against one’s conscience.
5. UZNAJĘ pierwszeństwo prawa Bożego nad prawem ludzkim – aktualną potrzebę przeciwstawiania się narzuconym antyhumanitarnym ideologiom współczesnej cywilizacji, – potrzebę stałego pogłębiania nie tylko wiedzy zawodowej, ale także wiedzy o antropologii chrześcijańskiej i teologii ciała. 5. RECOGNISE the priority of God’s law over the law of nations and,a. The current need for providing alternatives to the anti-human ideologies and dictates imposed by some contemporary societies.b. The need to constantly deepen not only professional knowledge but also the knowledge of Christian anthropology and theology of the body.
6. UWAŻAM, że – nie narzucając nikomu swoich poglądów, przekonań – lekarze katoliccy mają prawo oczekiwać i wymagać szacunku dla swoich poglądów i wolności w wykonywaniu czynności zawodowych zgodnie ze swoim sumieniem. 6. BELIEVE that, while not imposing their beliefs and opinions, Catholics, including doctors and students, have a right to perform their professional activities in accordance with their conscience.
Wysokim uznaniem darzymy tych lekarzy i członków służby zdrowia, którzy w pełnieniu swojego zawodu ponad wszelką ludzką korzyść przenoszą to, czego wymaga od nich szczególny wzgląd na chrześcijańskie powołanie. Niech niezachwianie trwają w zamiarze popierania zawsze tych rozwiązań, które zgadzają się z wiarą i prawym rozumem oraz niech starają się dla tych rozwiązań zjednać uznanie i szacunek ze strony własnego środowiska. Niech ponadto uważają za swój zawodowy obowiązek zdobywanie w tej trudnej dziedzinie niezbędnej wiedzy, aby małżonkom zasięgającym opinii, mogli służyć należytymi radami i wskazywać właściwą drogę, czego słusznie i sprawiedliwie się od nich wymaga. Likewise we hold in the highest esteem those doctors and members of the nursing profession who, in the exercise of their calling, endeavor to fulfill the demands of their Christian vocation before any merely human interest. Let them therefore continue constant in their resolution always to support those lines of action which accord with faith and with right reason. And let them strive to win agreement and support for these policies among their professional colleagues. Moreover, they should regard it as an essential part of their skill to make themselves fully proficient in this difficult field of medical knowledge. For then, when married couples ask for their advice, they may be in a position to give them right counsel and to point them in the proper direction. Married couples have a right to expect this much from them.
Paweł VI, Humanae vitae, 27. Pope Paul VI, Encyclical Humanae Vitae, 27
 *Translation by Matercare International

“NO MORE CHRISTIAN DOCTORS”

  Crusade against NFP-only physicians

“Religious beliefs should remain where they belong – in the private domain.”

 Sean Murphy*

Abstract

A 25 year old woman could not obtain a prescription for contraceptives at a clinic because the physician did not prescribe them for reasons of “medical judgment as well as professional ethical concerns and religious values.”  She obtained the prescription at a clinic two minutes away. A crusade was started against the physician and two colleagues with the same views. Crusaders argued that in a ‘secular’ state health care system, physicians should be forbidden to act on their moral or religious beliefs.

Physicians who refuse to prescribe contraceptives face a difficult challenge, since aggressive contraceptive promotion has left most people unaware of alternatives. Further, the social progress of women is widely attributed to contraceptives, so that failure to provide them risks an adverse reaction. Nonetheless, based on a respectful understanding of female fertility cycles and other factors, plausible reasons can be given to justify refusal to prescribe contraceptives and recommendation of Natural Family Planning.

The Supreme Court of Canada has acknowledged that secularists are believers, no less persons with religious beliefs. There is no legal warrant for the idea that a secular state must be purged of the expression of religious belief. The claim that a secular state or health care system is “faith-free” is radically false. Both religious belief and secularism can result in narrow dogmatism and intolerance, as demonstrated by the crusade against the physicians.

Since the practice of medicine is an inescapably moral enterprise, every decision concerning treatment is a moral decision. Since the practice of morality is a human enterprise, the secular public square is populated by people with many moral viewpoints. To discriminate against religious belief is a distortion of liberal principles. Moreover, if religious believers can be forced to do what they believe to be wrong, so can non-religious believers. This would establish a destructive and dangerous ‘duty to do what is wrong.’

It is essential to maintain the integrity of physicians and well-being of patients. After abortion was legalized, a difficult compromise emerged that safeguards both, while protecting the community against a purported ‘duty to do what is wrong.’ Nonetheless, some people are trying to entrench that duty in medical practice, moving from a purported duty to provide or facilitate abortion to a duty to kill or facilitate the killing of patients by euthanasia. It is unacceptable to compel people to commit or even to facilitate what they see as murder, and punish or penalize them if they refuse. It is equally unacceptable to insist that physicians must not act upon beliefs, because it is impossible; one cannot act morally without reference to beliefs. Such policies are inconsistent with the central place occupied by individual conscience and judgment in a liberal democracy.

Freedom of conscience can be adequately accommodated in a society characterized by a plurality of moral and political viewpoints if appropriate distinctions are made. The first of these is the distinction between the exercise of perfective freedom of conscience: pursuing an apparent good – and preservative freedom of conscience: refusing to participate in wrongdoing. The state can sometimes legitimately limit perfective freedom of conscience by preventing people from doing what they believe to be good, but it does not follow that it is equally free to suppress preservative freedom of conscience by forcing them to do what they believe to be wrong.

To force people to do something they believe to be wrong is always an assault on their personal dignity and essential humanity, and it always has negative implications for society. It is a policy fundamentally opposed to civic friendship, which grounds and sustains political community and provides the strongest motive for justice. It is inconsistent with the best traditions and aspirations of liberal democracy, since it instills attitudes more suited to totalitarian regimes than to the demands of responsible freedom. Even the strict approach taken to limiting other fundamental rights and freedoms is not sufficiently refined to be safely applied to limit freedom of conscience in its preservative form. Like the use of potentially deadly force, if the restriction of preservative freedom of conscience can be justified at all, it will only be as a last resort and only in the most exceptional circumstances.

That a young woman had to drive around the block to fill a birth control prescription does not meet this standard.

Part 1:  The Making of a Story

 

Complicity after the fact

Moral blindness becomes a virtue and necessity

US scientists were “accomplices after the fact” in Japanese doctors’ war crimes

Bioedge

Michael Cook*

All of contemporary bioethics springs from the Nuremberg Doctors Trial in 1947. Seven Nazi doctors and officials were hanged and nine received severe prison sentences for performing experiments on an estimated 25,000 prisoners in concentration camps without their consent. Only about 1,200 died but many were maimed and psychologically scarred.

So what did the US do to the hundreds of Japanese medical personnel who experimented on Chinese civilians and prisoners of war of many nationalities, including Chinese, Koreans, Russians, Australians, and Americans? They killed an estimated 3,000 people in the infamous Unit 731 in Harbin, in northeastern China before and during World War II – plus tens of thousands of civilians when they field-tested germ warfare. Many of the doctors were academics from Japan’s leading medical schools.
Full Text

 

Physicians in Ottawa under attack for refusing to prescribe contraceptives

Physicians in Ottawa under attack for refusing to prescribe contraceptivesA 25 year old woman went to a walk-in clinic in Ottawa, Ontario, to get a prescription for birth control pills.  She was advised the physician on duty did not prescribe contraceptives, and was given a letter stating that for reasons of  “medical judgment as well as professional ethical concerns and religious values” he would assist patients only with Natural Family Planning.  She declined to return the next day to see another physician, and drove around the block to another clinic about two minutes away.  She posted the letter on Facebook, which resulted in a campaign against three Ottawa physicians who decline to provide contraceptives.

Outraged Facebookers called the physician a “jerk,” a “complete anachronism,” “disgusting,” incompetent, “unethical and unprofessional,” a “worthless piece of ____,” a “crummy doctor,” “an idiot,” and described him as – judgemental.

“Goofballs like this,” wrote one, “are the best walking arguments for the birth control they don’t believe in.”

“He should move to the states, or maybe Dubai, where he will be among his own kind.”

One Facebooker suggested that women should go to the clinic to make gratuitous requests for prescriptions, apparently for the purpose of fabricating complaints against the physician: “I think that women should start going in looking for prescriptions for The Pill. You know, just a top up till their family doctor can see them again.”