Service, not Servitude
Monterrey, Mexico, Oct 30, 2019 / 05:19 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera López of Monterrey said Sunday he supports the reform of the Healthcare Law in Mexico’s Nuevo Leon state allowing conscientious objection for doctors and nurses.
Speaking to the press Oct. 27, Cabrera said that “conscientious objection is a universally established right; I think that sometimes the problem is how it is understood or put into practice.” . . . [Full text]
Financial Times
Seven Italian doctors who refused to perform a potentially life-saving abortion are fighting accusations of manslaughter in a trial that is expected to set a precedent for Italy’s medical attitude towards the procedure.
The trial held in Catania, Sicily, focuses on the circumstances of the death, in 2016, of five-months-pregnant Valentina Milluzzo. Members of Milluzzo’s family, who gave evidence on Tuesday, said that when the 32-year-old was admitted to hospital with complications, doctors said her unborn twins would not survive but refused to terminate the pregnancies on moral grounds, which ultimately led to fatal sepsis. . . [Full text]
News Release
Yesterday 28 October at the Casina PIo IV in the Vatican, 40 representatives of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths signed the joint Position Paper of the Abrahamic monotheistic religions on matters concerning the end of life.
Invited by the Pontifical Academy for Life, presided over by His Excellency Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the religious, including the Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development Peter K. A. Turkson, have committed themselves in 12 points to stating that euthanasia and assisted suicide are morally and intrinsically wrong and should be prohibited without exception. Any pressure and action on patients to end their lives is categorically rejected.
A very important point for the mission of the Dicastery is that concerning Health Care Workers that states that no health care worker should be forced or subjected to pressure to witness directly or indirectly the deliberate and intentional death of a patient through assisted suicide or any form of euthanasia, especially when such practices go against the health care worker’s religious beliefs, because there should be always respect for conscientious objection to acts that conflict with a person’s ethical values. This remains valid, continues the Paper, even if such acts have been declared legal at a local level or by categories of persons.
Very significant, the joint declaration also addresses the spiritual and material accompaniment of the terminally ill and their families, as well as the use of medical technology at the end of life and the promotion of palliative care.
BioEdge
A bitter divorce case in Texas involving the custody of seven-year-old twin boys has turned toxic after the parents began disputing whether one of them is transgender. It has become a test case for the legitimacy of transgender medicine for children.
The father, Jeff Younger, argues that his son, James, identifies with his biological sex. The mother, Anne Georgulas, a paediatrician, argues that James is really a girl and demands that he be called Luna. . . [Full text]
News Release
The World Medical Association has reaffirmed its long-standing policy of opposition to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
After an intensive process of consultation with physicians and non physicians around the world, the WMA at its annual Assembly in Tbilisi, Georgia, adopted a revised Declaration on Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide.
This states: ‘The WMA reiterates its strong commitment to the principles of medical ethics and that utmost respect has to be maintained for human life. Therefore, the WMA is firmly opposed to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.’
It adds: ‘No physician should be forced to participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide, nor should any physician be obliged to make referral decisions to this end.’
The Declaration says: ‘Separately, the physician who respects the basic right of the patient to decline medical treatment does not act unethically in forgoing or withholding unwanted care, even if respecting such a wish results in the death of the patient.’
The revised Declaration defines euthanasia as ‘a physician deliberately administering a lethal substance or carrying out an intervention to cause the death of a patient with decision-making capacity at the patient’s own voluntary request.’
It says that physician-assisted suicide ‘refers to cases in which, at the voluntary request of a patient with decision-making capacity, a physician deliberately enables a patient to end his or her own life by prescribing or providing medical substances with the intent to bring about death.’
WMA Chair Dr. Frank Ulrich Montgomery said: ‘Having held consultative conferences involving every continent in the world, we believe that this revised wording is in accord with the views of most physicians worldwide.’