On February 8 the Catholic Civil Rights League, the Toronto Catholic Doctors’ Guild, and Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute held a seminar/webinar to help you frame your response to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s policy document on professional obligations and human rights.
Tag: physicians
A watchdog in need of a leash
Ontario College of Physicians manipulates consultation process
New Release
For immediate release
It appears that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is manipulating its consultation process to support a controversial draft policy intended to force doctors to do what they believe to be wrong.
The College is intervening in a Discussion Forum about Professional Obligations and Human Rights (POHR), apparently to discredit critics and defend the policy. The Forum is supposed to be used by the public to provide feedback on the policy, and to post emails and written submissions the College receives from the public.
But on 29 January the College posted a comment accusing Professor Margaret Somerville of misrepresenting its policy in a National Post column. The comment included a link to a letter to the National Post from College President, Dr. Carol Leet.
Not content with interfering in the consultation by posting its own statement, the College impersonated anonymous forum participants and used its statement to reply to comments supporting Professor Somerville’s “modest proposal.”
Someone at the College seems to have had second thoughts about impersonating participants, because the replies were revised a couple of days later to identify the College as the author. But the purported correction of participant responses still violates College policy.
Sean Murphy, Administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project, thinks College officials are interfering in the consultation because they are afraid that more people will begin to realize what the draft policy really means.
“In her National Post column, Professor Somerville succinctly critiqued the draft policy, and offered a reasonable alternative,” he said. “If Dr. Leet disagreed, she was within her rights to write a letter to the editor.”
“But,” he added, “interfering in the consultation process is unacceptable.”
Murphy observed that the College is supposed to be the watchdog protecting the public and profession from unethical conduct.
“It seems this watchdog needs a leash.”
For details, see A watchdog in need of a leash: Ontario College of Physicians manipulates consultation process
Saskatchewan physicians to be forced to participate in killing their patients
For Immediate Release
OTTAWA – “The assault on freedom of conscience that is spreading across our country ought to be of grave concern to every freedom-loving Canadian ,” MP Maurice Vellacott said upon learning of yet another province (this time his own) that plans to force physicians to participate in morally objectionable procedures, including those that kill. “No health care worker should be forced against their will to take part in the killing of another human being. It would be a grotesque violation of their human dignity.”
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan (CPSS) has adopted in principle a policy[i] which it basically “cut and paste” from the Conscience Research Group’s (CRG’s) Model Policy on Conscientious Objection in Medicine.[ii]
Mr. Vellcott asked a series of questions that paint a disturbing picture of the process, or lack thereof, that went into CPSS’s adoption of this objectionable policy:
“Was the CPSS aware that the drafters of the Model Policy, notably Professor Jocelyn Downie of Dalhousie University, are abortion and euthanasia activists?
Did the CPSS solicit input from anyone other than Professor Downie and her team at the CRG[iii] before adopting this policy?
Did the Saskatchewan College let on to anyone else that it was even considering this issue?
Is the CPSS aware that this policy was rejected by the Canadian Medical Association (CMA)?”
Mr. Vellacott explained: “Professor Downie and co-author Sanda Rodgers, in a 2006 guest editorial in the CMA Journal, ignited a firestorm of controversy when they falsely claimed that CMA policy requires physicians to make abortion referrals regardless of their conscientious/religious beliefs. As Sean Murphy, Administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project, points out in his recent news release, that claim was repudiated by the CMA and vehemently rejected by physicians. And partly as a result of that negative response, Professor Downie turned her attention to the regulatory Colleges to try to convince them to impose mandatory referral.”[iv]
Earlier this month, Mr. Vellacott spoke out against a similar draft policy of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO). At that time, he expressed concerns that if the Supreme Court of Canada strikes down Canada’s current ban on euthanasia or assisted suicide, then CPSO’s policy would mean Ontario’s physicians would have a ‘duty to refer’ patients for these life-ending procedures. He stressed that no other jurisdiction that currently allows euthanasia or assisted suicide imposes such an obligation. [v]
“While the CPSO policy is not identical to the CPSS/CRG Model Policy, in principle it is the same—a coercive attempt to involve physicians in the killing of some of the most vulnerable members of our human family,” Mr. Vellacott said. “The sheer fact that these Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons feel that a coercive policy of referral for these controversial procedures is necessary, is itself testament to the fact that there is something inherently problematic about these procedures in the first place. If they were procedures just like any other medical procedure, there’d be no need to coerce physicians into sacrificing a fundamental part of who they are—their very consciences—in order to provide them.”
“No good can come from forcing a doctor to practice medicine in a way they find morally reprehensible. Killing the consciences of our medical doctors will cause inestimable harm to the people of Canada and society as a whole.”
“One cannot help but wonder, what is the real motivation of those pushing us down this dangerous path? And will we have the courage and wisdom and foresight to stop it?”
For information on providing input to CPSS on its draft policy, visit: http://www.cps.sk.ca/CPSS/CouncilAndCommittees/Council_Consultations_and_Surveys.aspx
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For further information and comment, call (613) 992-1966 or (613) 297-2249; email: maurice.vellacott.a1@parl.gc.ca
[i] The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan (CPSS) is currently seeking input on a conscientious objection policy dubbed “Conscientious Refusal,” which it has adopted in principle. This policy would require physicians who object to providing certain “legally permissible and publicly-funded health services” to “make a timely referral to another health care provider who is willing and able to accept the patient and provide the service.” In cases where the patient’s “health or well-being” would be jeopardized by a delay in finding another physician, the physician would be forced to provide the service even when it “conflicts with physicians’ deeply held and considered moral or religious beliefs.” See: http://www.cps.sk.ca/Documents/Council/2015%201%2019%20Conscientious%20Objection%20policy%20approved%20in%20principle%20by%20Council.pdf
[ii] http://carolynmcleod.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/04_Downie-McLeod-Shaw.pdf
[iii] http://conscience.carolynmcleod.com/meet-the-team/
[iv] “Saskatchewan physicians to be forced to do what they believe to be wrong,” Protection of Conscience Project news release, Jan. 27, 2015
[v] See Jan. 8, 2015 news release and Backgrounder.
Saskatchewan physicians to be forced to do what they believe to be wrong
Policy wording supplied by abortion and euthanasia activists
Policy would apply to euthanasia, if legalized.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan is proposing a draft policy demanding that physicians who object to “legally permissible and publicly-funded health services” must direct patients to colleagues who will provide them. If another physician is unavailable, the College demands that they provide “legally permissible and publicly-funded” services, even if doing so “conflicts with physicians’ deeply held and considered moral or religious beliefs.”
Physicians usually refuse to participate in abortion because they believe it is wrong to kill what the criminal law refers to as a child that has not become a human being.1 The proposed policy will require them to find a physician willing to do the killing they won’t do. Should the Supreme Court of Canada legalize euthanasia, the policy will require objecting physicians who refuse to kill patients to find someone who will.
The seamless fit between referral for abortion and referral for euthanasia is not surprising. The draft College policy was largely written by abortion and euthanasia activists, notably Professor Jocelyn Downie of Dalhousie University.
In a 2006 guest editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Professor Downie and another law professor claimed that objecting physicians are obliged to refer patients for abortion.2 Their views were vehemently rejected by physicians and repudiated by the Canadian Medical Association.3 Partly as a result of the negative response, Professor Downie and her colleagues in the “Conscience Research Group” decided to convince Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons to impose it.4
Saskatchewan’s draft policy is taken almost verbatim from their “Model Conscientious Objection Policy.”
The Conscience Research Group is a tax-funded initiative that includes Professors Downie and Daniel Weinstock.5 Both were members of an “expert panel” that recommended that health care professionals who object to killing patients should be compelled to refer patients to someone who would,6 because (they claimed) it is agreed that they can be compelled to refer for “reproductive health services.”7
Current efforts by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario to suppress freedom of conscience in the medical profession may have been influenced by the Conscience Research Group. However, the College in Saskatchewan is the first to copy and paste its preferred model into a draft policy.
The Project insists that it is incoherent and contrary to sound public policy to include a requirement to do what one believes to be wrong in a professional code of ethics. It is also an affront to the best traditions of liberal democracy, and, ultimately, dangerous.
The College Council has approved the policy in principle, but will accept feedback on it until 6 March, 2015.
Notes:
1. Criminal Code, Section 238(1). (Accessed 2014-12-02)
2. Rodgers S. Downie J. “Abortion: Ensuring Access.” CMAJ July 4, 2006 vol. 175 no. 1 doi: 10.1503/cmaj.060548 (Accessed 2014-12-02).
3. Blackmer J. Clarification of the CMA’s position on induced abortion. CMAJ April 24, 2007 vol. 176 no. 9 doi: 10.1503/cmaj.1070035 (Accessed 2014-02-22)
4. McLeod C, Downie J. “Let Conscience Be Their Guide? Conscientious Refusals in Health Care.” Bioethics ISSN 0269-9702 (print); 1467-8519 (online) doi:10.1111/bioe.12075 Volume 28 Number 1 2014 pp ii–iv
5. Let their conscience be their guide? Conscientious refusals in reproductive health care: Meet the team.(Accessed 2014-11-21)
6. 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. 101 (Accessed 2014-02-23)
7. 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. 62 (Accessed 2014-02-23)
A modest proposal for respecting physicians’ freedom of conscience
The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons is consulting on whether patients’ right of access to certain procedures, such as abortion, should trump the rights of those physicians who refuse, for reasons of conscience, to provide them. Dr. Marc Gabel, a College official, chairs the working group looking at this issue, which is drafting a new policy on “Professional Obligations and Human Rights.”
Dr. Gabel has been reported as saying that “physicians unwilling to provide or facilitate abortion for reasons of conscience should not be family physicians” and it seems wants the College to approve that stance. Sean Murphy, of the Protection of Conscience Project, argues that “if it does, ethical cleansing of Ontario’s medical profession will begin this year, ridding it of practitioners unwilling to do what they believe to be wrong.”
Freedom of conscience, like the other fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is a fundamental pillar of democracy. So how could breaching this right be, as Dr Gabel claims, “required by professional practice and human rights legislation”? . . . [Full text]