Tag: referral

What’s behind the demolition of conscience rights in Canada?

Mercatornet

Margaret Somerville*

I’ve been puzzling about why Canadian “progressive” values advocates, particularly those passionately in favour of the legalization of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (“physician-assisted death” (PAD)), are so adamant in trying to force healthcare professionals and institutions who have conscience or religious objections to these procedures to become complicit in them.

Complicity would occur if objecting individual physicians were forced to provide “effective referrals” or objecting institutions were forced to allow PAD in their facilities. An “effective referral” is defined by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons as “a referral made in good faith, to a non-objecting, available, and accessible physician or other health-care provider.”

In general, progressive values advocates claim to give priority to rights to individual autonomy, choice, control over what happens to oneself, and tolerance for those who believe differently. Yet in relation to respect for the freedom of conscience and, where relevant, religious belief, of physicians or institutions who oppose PAD, none of these principles seem to be applied. Why? [Full text]

The intersection of freedom of conscience and assisted dying

One MP’s views on balancing the needs of patients and doctors who have personal issues providing assisted dying

Macleans

Garnett Genuis

Garnett Genuis, the Conservative MP for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan in Alberta, has served on the Physician-Assisted Dying Committee.

Parliament will imminently be dealing again with the issue of physician-assisted suicide / euthanasia. If government legislation follows the direction given in the report of the Liberal-dominated joint committee, we are in for (among other things) a significant change in the way Canadian law treats freedom of conscience.

The court was clear in Carter that nothing in their decision would require anyone to be involved in euthanasia or assisted suicide if they did not wish to be. In this respect, I think the court got it right. Freedom of conscience is protected by the Charter itself. Euthanasia and assisted suicide were considered murder until just this year; it’s understandable that many healthcare providers remain uncomfortable with it. . . [Full text]

 

Belgian lawmakers to vote on world’s first death on demand law which would mean no doctor could stop a patient who wants to die

 Law is said to have high chance of getting support from parliamentarians

The Daily Mail

Steve Doughty

The world’s first ‘death on demand’ law is set to go before legislators in Belgium who have already ushered through an ultra-liberal euthanasia regime.

The new rules would mean no doctor would be allowed to block the wishes of a patient who asked to die.

The law – put forward by the country’s opposition socialist party – is thought to have a high chance of commanding support from a majority of parliamentarians.

They come at a time when numbers dying each year under the euthanasia laws have doubled in five years to reach more than 2,000. . . [Full text]

 

More bracket creep in Belgian euthanasia

BioEdge

Michael Cook

Three bills which could significantly expand the scope of euthanasia in Belgium have been proposed by Laurette Onkelinx, the leader of the Belgian Socialists and a former Deputy Prime Minister.

The first (PDF) would remove a five-year sunset clause for advance declaration of a patient’s willingness to accept euthanasia. This would mean that a document written 20 or 30 years before would be valid, no matter what a patient might have thought in recent times.

The second (PDF) would force doctors to give a rapid turn-around to requests for euthanasia. They would have to answer within seven days. If they refused, they would have to transfer the patient’s file to a doctor who would be willing to give a lethal injection. This threatens to remove physicians’ right to conscientious objection to euthanasia. It would also force doctors to treat a request as a matter of urgency, even though it might have come during a psychological crisis which would soon pass.

The third (PDF) would remove the right of institutions like hospitals or nursing homes to refuse to allow euthanasia on their premises. Ms Onkelinx insists that institutions have no right to conscientious objection; only doctors do. Her bill affirms a doctor’s right to follow his conscientious belief in the practice of euthanasia. In an explanatory memorandum, she invokes the principle that “a doctor can be neither forced to nor prevented from practicing euthanasia in legal conditions, wherever he might be.”

Although the proposals are radical, they have hardly been reported, even in the Belgian media.

 

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Vancouver health authority changes assisted-dying guidelines for staff

Winnipeg Free Press

Laura Kane, Canadian Press

VANCOUVER – A major British Columbia health authority has updated its guidelines for medical staff on how to respond to requests for assisted death, allowing doctors and nurses to refer patients to a colleague.

Vancouver Coastal Health first distributed a bulletin on Feb. 5 that advised staff not to provide advice on assistance in dying, but to inform patients that they may wish to speak with legal counsel as a court-ordered exemption may be granted.

Dr. Ellen Wiebe, the Vancouver doctor who recently helped a Calgary woman with ALS die, said the original notice was unacceptable as it appeared to warn staff not to engage in conversations about assisted death.

“The recommendations that went out to clinical units were outrageous,” she said. “It was basically, ‘Don’t talk.’ That’s completely unacceptable. That hurts patients.”

After the health authority issued an updated bulletin on Thursday that advised staff to offer to connect patients with a colleague for more information, Wiebe said she was satisfied. . . [Full text]