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

Equality Act’s Attack on Religious Liberty, Medical Conscience

National Review

Reproduced with permission

Wesley J. Smith

President Biden said during the campaign that he supported the Equality Act, which is being sold as a means of guaranteeing equality for LGBT people.

But it does more than that. It would destroy medical conscience by removing existing protections that permit doctors and nurses to refuse participation in abortion, and it would gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The Charlotte Lozier Institute’s associate scholar Richard Doerflinger explains in a white paper he authored on the bill. From “The ‘Equality Act’: Threatening Life and Equality:”

The Equality Act’s new freestanding ban on pregnancy discrimination . . . adds the new requirement for women to receive “treatment” for pregnancy that is as “favorable” as treatment for any other “physical condition” . . . . It provides rules of construction indicating that the new requirement should be interpreted as broadly as possible. . . . And it negates the existing religious freedom law that allows believers to seek an exemption from such requirements based on sincere religious beliefs such as respect for human life.

That’s the end of medical conscience, an aspect of freedom of religion that permits doctors and nurses to refuse to participate in the termination of pregnancies.

That’s not all. The bill guts the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a defense against acts deemed discriminatory in the bill. Among other wrongs, this could force Catholic hospitals to permit sterilization, contraception, abortion, and transgender surgeries on premises despite their being prohibited by Catholic moral teaching.

Interestingly the ACLU once understood the importance of protecting Catholic hospitals from such impositions. It now supports the Equality Act:

It is notable that in 1992 the ACLU recognized a religious hospital’s right to decline involvement even in contraception. This is also a service related to pregnancy, so would presumably be required of religious hospitals under the Equality Act – as would removal of a woman’s healthy uterus, surgically sterilizing her, to facilitate her transition to a male gender identity.

As noted above, the Equality Act’s mandates and its elimination of any defense under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act would also reverse the outcome of Supreme Court cases on the Affordable Care Act, subjecting the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious entities to a mandate for contraceptive and early abortifacient  coverage.

Read the whole paper. It is a sobering assessment.

The Equality Act is a blatant act of cultural imperialism and a high-priority agenda item for the new administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress. So much for “unity.”