Protecting The Right to Conscientious Objection

Reproduced with permission

Kelvin Goertzen, MLA

In 2015 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Canadians could access a medical assisted death with the help of a physician. As part of that decision, the Supreme Court tasked Parliament with developing the legislative framework by which the medical assisted death (otherwise known as MAID) could happen in Canada.

The decision has resulted in a number of different concerns regarding the right to conscientious objection for medical professionals and others. As Minister of Health for Manitoba over the past year, I have heard from many in the healthcare profession who are concerned that they may in the future be required to participate in a MAID procedure as a requirement of their occupation.

While the provincial governments have been mandated by the Supreme Court decision to ensure there is access to MAID, they also have a responsibility to ensure that those who are unable to participate in a medically assisted death due to their personal beliefs or values have protection.

That is why during this past session of the Manitoba Legislature, I introduced Bill 34 (currently in second reading) which is about providing protection to medical professionals and others who may not want to participate, for whatever reason, in a medical assisted death. There was no robust legislation in Manitoba or anywhere else that protected medical professionals so that they would not be required to act in a medical assisted death. Not just doctors, but nurses and other health professionals have asked for legislative means to ensure that this protection exists, not just for today but for the future as well.

The legislation would ensure that now and into the future, an individual could refuse to participate in a medically assisted death without any disciplinary or employment repercussions. It also prohibits a professional regulatory body from requiring its members to participate in a medically assisted death.

In Manitoba we have been a leader in ensuring that a balance is struck between meeting the legal responsibilities flowing from the Supreme Court of Canada and Parliament’s subsequent action and ensuring that medical professionals are able to also act in a way that is in keeping with their own personal convictions and the purpose for which they entered the medical field. The work of the individual professional colleges in Manitoba has been helpful to date in working to protect the rights of medical professionals and the legislation which I have introduced will help to support that work.

I look forward to this legislation being further considered in the fall session of the Manitoba Legislature and to ensuring that medical professionals have their conscientious rights protected.

 

 

Ontario doctors challenge policy forcing referrals for medically assisted dying

College’s rules infringe on doctors’ right to object on conscientious, religious grounds, groups argue

CBC News

Amanda Pfeffer

Rules forcing Ontario doctors to offer medically assisted dying — or at least a timely referral — infringe on their constitutional right to object on conscientious or religious grounds, several physicians’ groups told a divisional court tribunal this week.

Their lawyer is asking the tribunal for a judicial review of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s (CPSO) recent policy on assisted dying, which requires doctors to perform an “effective referral.”

But several groups including the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada, the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians’ Societies and Canadian Physicians for Life, along with five individuals, are arguing the policy is the moral equivalent of offering the procedure themselves. . . [Full text]

 

Doctors have right to choose what services they perform

Toronto Sun
Reproduced with permission

John Carpay

Should the government be able to force a person to do something that she or he considers to be fundamentally wrong?

Dictatorships say yes, but free countries like Canada have always said no.

For example, those who believe that killing another person is never justified, not even in a war against an invading foreign power, are exempted from mandatory military service.

Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice is considering freedom of conscience this week, in a court action brought by the Christian Medical and Dental Society (CMDS) against the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO).

The college has adopted policies that require doctors to assist patients who want to commit suicide, and to provide abortions, even if those services conflict with a doctor’s conscience or ethics. The CPSO requires doctors to provide these services themselves, or provide an “effective referral” to another doctor.

There is no shortage of doctors who are willing to do abortions, and doctors willing to assist people who want to commit suicide. So these college policies are driven by ideology, not by any practical need.

The CPSO argues that it’s no big deal for doctors to refer patients for a service that the doctor sees as wrong, and that this is a fair compromise for objecting doctors. However, when the college prohibits doctors from mutilating the genitals of young girls (called “female circumcision” in some cultures), the college also bans referring for this medical service. Why? Because referring a patient (or the parents of a young girl) to another doctor amounts to active participation. It’s like saying, “I won’t take part in robbing the bank, but I will provide the robber with information as to where he can get his gun.”

The college argues that the rights of patients are in conflict with doctors’ freedom of conscience, and that patients’ interests should prevail over constitutional rights. But in fact, Canadian courts have repeatedly ruled that patients do not have a constitutional right to any particular medical procedure. In one Ontario case, a man with liver cancer was told he had eight months to live. Adolfo Flora then spent $450,000 in the U.K. for a living-related liver transplantation, which saved his life.

The government refused to reimburse the $450,000, insisting that the government has the sole right to determine what services would or would not be provided by its health-care monopoly. The court agreed, and ruled against Flora.

In Ontario and other provinces, it’s illegal for patients to buy private health insurance and private medical services. When Canadians have no right to access essential health services outside of the government’s monopoly, it makes no sense to argue that patients have a “right” to force unwilling doctors to do what those doctors consider to be wrong.

But even if the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provided patients with a right to health care, this would still not justify violating the Charter-protected freedom of conscience that doctors — and all citizens of a free society — enjoy.

 

 

Canadian nurse forced out for refusing to participate in euthanasia

Lifesite News

Pete Baklinski

PALMER RAPIDS, Ontario, June 14, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — A Canadian nurse no longer has her job helping the sick and the elderly after she was told that she must either assist patients who wanted to kill themselves using the country’s new euthanasia law, or resign.

Mary Jean Martin, a Registered Nurse who worked in middle-management as a Homecare Coordinator in Ontario, said she became a nurse in the late 1980s to help the “vulnerable and the struggling,” not to be a link in a chain that would ultimately lead to a patient’s death.

“Can you imagine being a nurse and being told that you have to help kill someone? That’s so against the philosophy of nursing and it’s so against the heart of the healthcare person,” she told LifeSiteNews in an exclusive interview. . . [Full text]

 

Swedish midwife turns to European Court of Human Rights

News Release

Alliance Defending Freedom

STRASBOURG, France – A Christian midwife filed her application with the European Court of Human Rights Wednesday against Sweden. Elinor Grimmark had to seek work in another country because she refused to participate in abortions. Because the Swedish courts have failed to recognize her freedom of conscientious objection, she is asking the European court to hear her case, Grimmark v. Sweden.

“The desire to help bring life into this world is what leads many midwives and nurses to enter the medical profession in the first place. Instead of forcing desperately needed midwives out of a profession, governments should look to safeguard the moral convictions of medical staff,” said ADF International Director of European Advocacy Robert Clarke. “Ellinor’s case could determine whether people who value life at all stages of development will be able to pursue a medical career in the future. Sweden has failed to protect this midwife’s fundamental right to freedom of conscience guaranteed by international law.”

Three different medical clinics had refused to employ Grimmark because she would not assist with abortions in light of her convictions about the dignity of all human life. On April 12, the Swedish Labour Court of Appeal refused to protect her freedom of conscience and instead found that Grimmark’s rights had not been violated.

The court required her to pay the local government’s legal costs, amounting to more than 150,000 euros. ADF International filed an expert brief in support of her case with the Swedish court, highlighting the protection for freedom of conscience that exists under international law.

“I chose the midwifery profession because I wanted to help bring life into this world,” explained Grimmark during a media background briefing in Strasbourg Wednesday. “I cannot understand why the Swedish government refuses to accommodate my conscientious convictions. I am now working in Norway, where my conscience is respected, but no one can explain why Sweden cannot do the same.”

ADF International is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith.
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