Appeal to sound medicine, not conscience rights: expert

Defenders of life called to polish arguments for the right to life

BC Catholic

Deborah Gyapong

U.S. physician and theologian is warning appeals to conscience rights may no longer be effective because they appear to pit physicians against their patients.

Instead, defenders of conscience rights must polish their rhetorical arguments in defence of good professional judgment and sound medicine, said Dr. Farr Curlin March 16. He was giving the annual Weston lecture sponsored by Augustine College.

A palliative care physician and co-director of the Theology, Medicine and Culture Initiative at Duke University in Raleigh, NC, Curlin has been called as an expert witness in the case of five Ontario doctors who are challenging the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s policy that would force physicians to make effective referrals on abortion, euthanasia, and other procedures they may find morally objectionable.

“The policy is outrageous and unprecedented,” Curlin said. “It’s also incoherent.” . . . [Full text]

 

Cardinal urges Ontario gov’t not to ‘bully’ doctors into helping euthanize patients

Lifesite News

Pete Baklinski

TORONTO, March 24, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Doctors who refuse to kill a patient “need protection so that they can act according to their conscience,” Cardinal Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto, told the Ontario legislature on Thursday.

“It is sad that I and others need to come before you today to urge you to protect these devoted healers from the punishment which they face if they refuse either to administer a lethal injection to their patients or, in effective referral, to arrange for that injection to be administered,” he told Ontario’s Standing Committee on Finance & Economic Affairs. . . . [Full text]

 

Naturopath doctor argues for conscience rights protection

The Catholic Register

Michael Swan

A naturopath stole the show as hearings began into Ontario’s enabling legislation for doctor assisted suicide at Queen’s Park on March 23.

Conscience rights aren’t primarily about religion, but rather about the convictions of citizens and the obligation governments have to respect and protect citizens and their convictions, Dr. Nora Pope told members of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs.

“I won’t refer for killing because I don’t believe in killing,” Pope told legislators as she pleaded for an amendment to Bill 84 to protect the conscience rights of medical practitioners. . . [Full text]

 

Constitutional lawyers debate conscience rights

BC Catholic

Deborah Gyapong

Legal experts squared off in a debate on physicians’ conscience rights March 16 in a debate hosted by the University of Ottawa’s law school.

Albertos Polizogopoulos, representing five Ontario doctors challenging Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeon policies requiring effective referral on procedures such as abortion and euthanasia, argued for conscience rights. He argued Section 2(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides such protection. . .

 

Queen’s University Senior Contracts Negotiator Ricardo Smalling argued physicians’ conscience rights must be balanced with the rights of patients who are seeking care in their “weakest” moments.

Highlighting the “subjective nature of conscience,” Smalling said eliminating conscientious objection “is the only way to ensure there is a predictable framework that guarantees a patient’s health care.” . . . [Full text]

 

Doctors harvesting organs from Canadian patients who underwent medically assisted death

What if people agree to donate, but then change their mind about euthanasia? Would they feel compelled to follow through, knowing someone is waiting for their organs?

National Post

Sharon Kirkey

Doctors have already harvested organs from dozens of Canadians who underwent medically assisted death, a practice supporters say expands the pool of desperately needed organs, but ethicists worry could make it harder for euthanasia patients to voice a last-minute change of heart.

In Ontario, 26 people who died by lethal injection have donated tissue or organs since the federal law decriminalizing medical assistance in dying, or MAID, came into effect last June, according to information obtained by the Post. A total of 338 have died by medical assistance in the province. . . [Full text]