Service, not Servitude
Practical Ethics
Some argue that good medicine depends on physicians having a wide discretionary space in which they can act on their consciences (Sulmasy, 2017). Interestingly, those who are against conscientious objection in medicine make the exact opposite claim – giving physicians the freedom to act on their consciences will undermine good medicine. So who is right here? . . . [Full text]
BBC News
When nerve surgeon Dr Susan Mackinnon needed help to finish an operation, she reached, as she often does, for a mid-20th Century book of anatomy.
Thanks to the complex hand-drawn illustrations – showing the human body peeled back layer by layer – Dr Mackinnon, from Washington University in St Louis, was able to complete the procedure.
The book she had used, the innocuous-sounding Pernkopf Topographic Anatomy of Man, is widely considered to be the best example of anatomical drawings in the world. It is richer in detail and more vivid in colour than any other. . . [Full text]
A national inquiry into the safety and ethics of transgender medicine will be conducted by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians with the backing of Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt.
At the moment there are no nationally agreed standards, although guidelines issued by Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital gender clinic have been referred to as the “Australian standards”. However, this document, which has been described as the “most progressive” in the world by Victoria’s Minister for Health, has not been approved by the National Health and Medical Research Council.
The RCH model commits doctors to the controversial policy of reducing“mental illness in trans and gender diverse children by affirming and protecting their identity in a world where many judge and hurt them”.
According to an exclusive article in The Australian about the inquiry, “Critics say the 2018 standards encourage risky medical treatment without properly considering safer therapies such as counselling for problems such as depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorder, bullying and family conflict. The RCH standards overplay evidence for medical treatment and downplay risks, say ‘dissident’ clinicians.”
The opposing sides of the debate over transgender Australian youth differ on fundamental issues.
Michelle Telfer, director of the Royal Children’s Hospital Gender Service in Melbourne, told The Australian that commencing medical intervention as young as 13 or 14 was “not at all controversial within those with expertise because we all know that we have been doing this for years”.
Critics question whether gender dysphoria is really understood.
“Far be it from anybody to say that there are absolutely no people in the world who are genuinely gender dysphoric and who find it impossible to live in their biological sex,” said Dr Dianna Kenny, a psychologist. “What I’m saying is it’s been massively and irresponsibly over-diagnosed … (these children and teens) are going to be irrevocably damaged by the treatment they received.”
And the ethics of irreversible medical treatment have not been settled. “Who gave ethics approval for this treatment (at children’s hospitals) when it lacks any scientific basis and therefore is an experiment?” asks Prof John Whitehall, of Western Sydney University. “We should give the psychiatry and psychology a full run before we start castrating children.”
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News Hub
David Seymour, whose proposed assisted dying law is going through Parliament, has hit back at a National MP asking for institutions like hospices to have the right to conscientiously object.
Seymour, leader of the ACT Party, responded by saying his End of Life Choice Bill “doesn’t require any organisation to do anything other than the Ministry of Health”.
“You can’t really be exempted from something you’re not required to do in the first place, but that seems to be what they’re asking for,” he told Newshub. . . [Full text]
Eternity
The “Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019 – which decriminalises abortion in NSW – has a drafting error in it, according to Freedom For Faith‘s Michael Kellahan.
The drafting error makes the “conscientious objection” provision in the bill much less effective, despite being designed to protect medical practitioners who do not wish to be involved in abortion.
The effect is that the protection is not operative where the pregnant woman herself asks for a termination of the pregnancy. . . [Full text]