Federal Court Upholds Conscience Protections for Doctors

The Daily Signal

Nicole Russell

Amid a flurry of activity and controversy with the incoming Biden administration, there was still a major victory for religious freedom and conscience protection last week.

On Jan. 19, a federal court, citing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, upheld conscience protections for physicians and struck down the transgender mandate that ordered doctors to perform transgender interventions when doing so violated the provider’s sincerely held religious beliefs. 

The case, Sisters of Mercy v. Azar, is hardly well-known, but no less newsworthy. The plaintiffs are an order of Catholic nuns, a Catholic university, and Catholic health care organizations. They sued the government, challenging Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which forced doctors to perform transgender interventions against their sincerely held religious beliefs or even sound, medical advice. . . [Full text]

Physicians should not be forced to make assisted-death referrals

Bill C-7, passed by the House of Commons and now in front of a Senate committee, raises even more ethical challenges than the original legislation. Doctors who object should not be compelled to support it.

Ottawa Citizen

Thomas Bouchard, Ramona Coelho,  Leonie Herx

Bill C-7 is changing the landscape of Canadian medicine. With this legislation, the federal government is expanding medically administered death (MAiD) to individuals not at end of life and with no requirement for MAiD to be a last resort in patient care. Under Bill C-7, a patient with a chronic illness or disability could receive MAiD when therapeutic options for care that could alleviate suffering have not been provided.

While some physicians may decide to aid in ending the life of their patient who is not dying, what will become of physicians who do not believe that administering death is good medicine?

Professional medical opinions are rooted in extensive medical knowledge, years of training and practice, and an individual practitioner’s conscience. It is our conscience that navigates us through the ethics necessary for providing each patient with the best medical advice for a given situation.

Medicine is not a department store. Our role is not to check the storeroom to see if we have the display item you like in the size and colour you desire. . . [Full text]

After all, what is really wrong with apotemnophilia?

BioEdge

Reproduced under Creative Commons Licence

Michael Cook*

Apotemnophilia is one of those words which may be useful in Scrabble© but seldom come up in day-to-day discourse, let alone medical practice. However, it is an increasingly contested issue in bioethics, though better known as BIID, Bodily Integrity Identity Disorder, or the amputation of healthy limbs.

BIID is a rare psychiatric condition in which people know that their leg (for instance) is normal and healthy, but still feel that it is not part of their identity; they want it cut off, even though they realise that they will become disabled. Oddly enough, however, they often do not seem to mind wearing a prosthesis to recover some of the limb’s functionality.

In a provocative article in The New Bioethics, Richard Gibson, of the University of Manchester Law School, in the UK, asks whether ultimately there would be anything wrong with BIID if a prosthesis provided equal or better functionality. . . [Full text]

Argentina’s abortion law enters force under watchful eyes

Associated Press

Almudena Calatrava

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentina’s groundbreaking abortion law goes into force Sunday under the watchful eyes of women’s groups and government officials, who hope to ensure its full implementation despite opposition from some conservative and church groups.

Argentina became the largest nation in Latin America to legalize elective abortion after its Senate on Dec. 30 passed a law guaranteeing the procedure up to the 14th week of pregnancy and beyond that in cases of rape or when a woman’s health is at risk.

The vote was hailed as a triumph for the South American country’s feminist movement that could pave the way for similar actions across the socially conservative, heavily Roman Catholic region.

But Pope Francis had issued a last-minute appeal before the vote and church leaders have criticized the decision. Supporters of the law say they expect lawsuits from anti-abortion groups in Argentina’s conservative provinces and some private health clinics might refuse to carry out the procedure. . . [Full text]

Accused of abandoning two babies in the US, this Chinese celebrity has sparked a national debate about surrogacy

CNN

Nectar Gan

Ad for surrogate mothers, Burbank, California, USA
Ad for surrogate mothers, Burbank, California, USA. Cory Doctorow, Flickr

(CNN)At first, it seemed like a classic celebrity romance.

Zheng Shuang, 29, was one of China’s most popular actresses after shooting to fame a decade ago. Zhang Heng, 30, was a talented producer for a variety show. In 2018, the pair went public with a set of couple selfies, and often appeared affectionately in the spotlight afterward — even co-starring in a popular reality series.

So fans were shocked when Zhang took to China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo earlier this month to claim he has been stranded in the United States for more than a year, left alone to “take care of and protect two young and innocent lives.”

The couple was believed to have split while two surrogate mothers they hired were pregnant with their kids, with Zheng accused of abandoning the babies.

A Chinese media outlet subsequently publicized alleged photos of the children’s birth certificates, which showed they were born in December 2019 and January 2020 in the US. Zhang and Zheng were named as their parents.

It also published a recording of an alleged phone call, during which Zheng’s parents allegedly suggested abandoning the children or giving them up for adoption, while Zheng allegedly expressed frustration that abortion was not a viable option given the mothers were 7 months’ pregnant at the time. . . continue reading