Protection of Conscience Project News
Service, not Servitude
The Gazette
Physicians who refuse to be co-opted into assisting patients accelerate their death are not, as Dr. Dave Lambert seems to imply, medical dinosaurs. And by rejecting his option, we are most certainly not trying to save or prolong lives “at all costs,” that is, we are not vitalists. One can simultaneously reject both vitalism and euthanasia. . . [Full text]
According to a report in The Examiner, a representative of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Association told a Tasmanian legislative committee that physicians who object to a procedure for reasons of conscience are obliged by professional codes of ethics to refer patients to another physician. Lisa McIntosh was addressing the Committee concerning a proposed Reproductive Health Bill.
Her assertion is contradicted by a submission by the Australian Medical Association Tasmania, which protested the section of the bill that would force objecting physicians to facilitate morally contested procedures by referral. The AMA Tasmania submission included quotes from the AMA Code of Ethics and a document from the Medical Board of Australia Good Medical Practice to demonstrate that the draft legislation information paper falsely claimed that there was a duty to refer.
The Committee also heard from Catholic Archbishop Adrian Doyle, whose concerns about the proposed bill included the mandatory referral provision.
Time Magazine reports upon a statement signed by 100 American professors of obstetrics and gynaecology under the headline, “Doctors Urge More Hospitals to Perform Abortions.” The statement expresses frustration that abortion policies and laws envisioned by 100 predecessors who signed a 1972 letter have not materialized. Notably, the statement reiterates the demand of the original letter that objecting physicians should be compelled to refer for abortion, something many objectors find unacceptable, and insists that all hospitals that admit women should be forced to admit women for abortions – and, presumably, provide them. This would be unacceptable to denominational institutions that object to the procedure.
The Time article notes that only 14% of American obstetrician-gynaecologists perform abortion, and hospitals provide only 4% of abortions done annually. The rest are provided in free-standing clinics. The signatories stress the need for hospitals to respond to the demand for second trimester abortions, which are even more controversial than the much more numerous first trimester procedures. It does not appear that the signatories recognize that requiring hospitals to provide second trimester abortions would likely generate more dramatic conflicts of conscience for health care workers who might be pressured to participate.
NEW ORLEANS (CNS) — Fine print contained in the Affordable Care Act has weakened conscience protections for physicians who oppose abortion, sterilization or other medical practices on religious or moral grounds, a doctor and ethicist told the American Academy of Fertility Care Professionals.
Dr. John Brehany, executive director and ethicist of the Catholic Medical Association, said with the passage of the new health care law, commonly called Obamacare, “the federal government is posing real threats to faithful health care professionals.”
“While Obamacare itself does have a couple of conscience-protection provisions built in, the fact is, if you look at the big picture, which are the old federal laws and what was achieved from 1973 to 2004, we are now missing some important protections, and we are now vague on how these old laws will carry forward into the future,” Brehany said Aug. 10 during told the academy’s annual gathering in New Orleans. . . . [Full text]
During the 146th Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Medical Association in Calgary, Alberta, discussion of motions concerning euthanasia and assisted suicide demonstrated how contentious the issues are for physicians. The delegates could not even agree upon what terminology should be used for the procedures, referring the question to the CMA board of directors. [Vancouver Sun; CMAJ] However, delegates “easily” passed a motion put forward by one of the delegates to support physician freedom of conscience: