Service, not Servitude
Hawaii’s new medically-assisted suicide law has gone into effect, but few doctors and pharmacies are willing to prescribe and dispense the life-ending medications.
Hawaii Pacific Health and The Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu said their pharmacies will not fill the prescriptions and hospitalized patients will not be able to take the lethal drugs on their campuses, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Tuesday. . . [Full text]
The increasingly aggressive discrimination in recent years against religious and pro-life healthcare professionals and students[1] parallels a concentrated effort by abortion proponents to undermine the rationale for conscience protections in healthcare. Desperate abortion advocates apparently have concluded that the way to counter the medical community’s resistance to abortion is through coercion.
Coercion appeals to some activists because coercion is much quicker than persuasion in effecting change. If abortion activists can eliminate conscience protections, then health professionals can be forced to participate in abortion or else sacrifice their careers. .
Affordable Care Act architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and University of Pennsylvania professor Ronit Stahl lay the foundation for getting rid of healthcare conscience protections, in a New England Journal of Medicine opinion piece entitled, “Physicians, Not Conscripts — Conscientious Objection in Health Care.”[2]
Their message is simple: Choice is a one-way street. Patients get to choose; doctors don’t—at least not after they enter the medical profession.
Emanuel and Stahl attempt to establish this radical principle by postulating a sharp distinction between conscience accommodations for military draftees and conscience accommodations for physicians.
Emanuel and Stahl write,
Although this [conscience healthcare protection] legislation ostensibly mimics that of military conscientious objection, it diverges considerably. Viewing conscientious objection in health care as analogous to conscientious objection to war mistakes choice for conscription, misconstrues the role of personal values in professional contexts, substitutes cost-free choices for penalized decisions, and cedes professional ethics to political decisions.”[3]
In the United States, a pacifist opposed to the military draft can receive a conscientious exemption from combat duty, even during a time of war when every other able-bodied citizen his age is expected to fight to defend the national interest. The cost to the country is high if counted in terms of fewer soldiers available for active duty.
Yet the authors would countenance no such rights, no such accommodation of cost, to a pro-life physician who cannot on the basis of conscience end the life of a developing baby in an elective abortion. While permitting the pacifist draftee a conscientious objection to killing, the authors contend, government must deny the same objection by a health professional.
Why? According to Emmanuel and Stahl, the reason is that physicians choose their professions, whereas draftees do not choose to join the military. . .[Full text]
CBC News
Nova Scotia’s only Catholic hospital is at risk of being found in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and human rights legislation by refusing to provide medical assistance in dying, a Halifax law professor says.
St. Martha’s Regional Hospital in Antigonish, N.S., is a publicly funded health-care facility. But due to its religious ties, staff are not permitted to provide MAID. . . [Full text]
The Irish Times (Letters)
Sir, – Special adviser, Dr Peter Boylan stated that the new abortion services will be “unrecognisable” in a year’s time from how they will appear on January 1st – the date for implementation set by Minister for Health Simon Harris. (Home News, December 16th). This comment is a cause of deep concern for clinicians who will be working in maternity units on day one and afterwards, when these services are rolled out. . .
. . . we will insist that the HSE and the Department of Health meet their responsibilities and commit to ongoing engagement with clinicians to resource our maternity units to the highest standards. The understandable passion to finally provide abortion care in Ireland should not blind us to the clinical reality of how unprepared we are. . .
Dr. Bridgette Byrne,Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital & RCSI;
Prof. Chris Fitzpatrick, Associate Prof. Mairead Kennelly, Associate Prof. Aisling Martin, Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital & UCD;
Dr. Sharon Sheehan,Master/CEO, Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital;
Dr. Keelin O’Donoghue, CorkUniversity Maternity Hospital & UCC;
Dr. Noirin Russell, Cork UniversityMaternity Hospital;
Prof. Fionnuala McAuliffe, NationalMaternity Hospital & UCD;
Dr. Peter McParland,National Maternity Hospital;
Dr. Jenny Walsh, National Maternity Hospital
Dr Nandini Ravikumar, Midland Regional Hospital at Mullingar;
Ass. Prof. Elizabeth Dunn, Wexford General Hospital & UCD & Dr. Francois Gardeil, Wexford General Hospital.
Irish Independent
JUST 145 GPs have signed up so far to provide medical abortions from January.
The relatively low number means that some women will have to travel for the service.
Around 39 of these GPs have not agreed to their names being given out to women in crisis who ring up a 24/7 helpline for counselling and direction to the nearest service. . . [Full text]