Tag: Ontario

Catholics urged to stand up for docs’ rights

 London Free Press

Jonathan Sher

A Roman Catholic cardinal is asking church members to fight a potential change that would discipline Ontario doctors who won’t provide birth control or refer patients for an abortion.

Thomas Cardinal Collins wrote earlier this month to the province’s Catholic bishops, who in turn enlisted their priests and parishioners.

“Trying to force doctors to act against their conscience would have terrible consequences for all of us,” Bishop Ronald Fabbro, of the Diocese of London, wrote to priests.

Until now, the regulatory college that disciplines doctors left it to them to decide when to withhold treatment or referrals that offended their religious or moral beliefs. [Full text]

COLF urges Catholics to speak up for physicians’ conscience rights

The Catholic Register

Deborah Gyapong

OTTAWA – The Canadian Organization for Life and Family (COLF) is urging Catholics to “speak up” as the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons reviews is policy on conscience rights.

“In 2008, a similar policy review by the College very nearly resulted in a serious threat to conscience rights within the practice of medicine in Ontario,” COLF warned. Public input has been welcomed, COLF said, encouraging people insist the college protect conscience rights.

“No physician should be forced to act against his or her conscience by providing health care services (for example: contraception, abortion, sterilization, etc.) contrary to their moral and religious beliefs,” COLF said. [Full text]

Ontario conscience debate is about forcing out Catholic doctors

Lifesite News

Lea Singh

Let’s be honest: The current pressure on the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario to change their human rights guidelines is all about forcing faithful Catholics out of the public square.

The media debate has focused on three Ottawa doctors who refuse to prescribe birth control pills, and guess what? All three of these doctors happen to be Catholic. The media hasn’t mentioned this fact, but there it is. Is it really surprising? Who else other than Catholics would refuse these days, on grounds of conscience or religious freedom, to prescribe birth control pills?

The Catholic Church consistently teaches that birth control pills (and other artificial birth control methods, including vasectomies) are morally wrong. Still, just a very small minority of Catholic doctors follow their faith to the extent of limiting their medical practice. For instance in Ottawa, a city with 870,000 inhabitants and hundreds of doctors, the media has reported only three such needles in the haystack. . . [Full Text]

Conscience rights for Ontario doctors may be on chopping block again

LifeSite News

Pete Balinski

Ontario’s College of Physicians and Surgeons is looking to update its policy on whether or not a doctor can refuse treatments on religious or moral grounds. The move has life and family advocates concerned doctors may be forced to violate their moral convictions when serving a patient, including one day being forced to participate in or refer for abortion and euthanasia.

“It is dangerous to ask anyone to set aside moral convictions. The greater the power and influence of the person involved, the more dangerous it is,” Sean Murphy, administrator of the Canada-based Protection of Conscience Project, told LifeSiteNews.

The College’s policy review comes at a time when mainstream media has highlighted a number of stories about women complaining that doctors would not prescribe birth control pills, either because of a medical judgment, ethical concerns, or religious beliefs. The reports have consistently sided with the pill-seeking women over the doctors. . . .[Full text]

Should doctors have the right to refuse to treat a patient?

The Globe and Mail

Kelly Grant

Canada’s largest medical regulator is reviewing its policy on physicians and the human rights code, a document that wrestles with a thorny question: When can a doctor refuse to treat a patient on religious or moral grounds?

The review by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) is a regularly scheduled revisiting of the policy, which was last updated amid controversy in 2008.

But the checkup also comes a few months after word spread online and in the mainstream media of a form letter distributed by three Ottawa doctors who declined to prescribe birth control because of their “religious values,” a rare example of physicians openly refusing – in writing – to provide services for religious reasons.

In another case that surfaced this week, a Calgary woman posted to Facebook a picture of a sign on the door of a walk-in clinic that read: “Please be informed the physician on duty today will not prescribe the birth control pill,” although the sign did not explain why. . . [Full text]