Tag: Carter v. Canada

Six questions about physician-assisted death, from a conscientious objector

National Post

Ewan C. Goligher

Canadian policy makers have recently proposed to require all doctors to provide an effective referral for physician-assisted death (PAD) upon the patient’s request. Forcing doctors to knowingly send their patient to another doctor willing to cause the patient’s death will seriously compromise the moral integrity of conscientiously objecting doctors and risks undermining the quality of patient care. To understand the position of conscientiously objecting doctors, consider the following questions.

1. Should doctors provide physician-assisted death merely because it is legal?

2. Must all doctors accept the assumptions underpinning the claim that physician-assisted death is good medical care?

3. If physician-assisted death remained illegal, would doctors be legally liable for making an effective referral?

4. Does the Charter right of Freedom of Conscience apply to doctors?

5. How does respect for conscientious objection affect patient care?

6. Will respect for conscientious objection obstruct access to physician-assisted death?

(For the author’s answers, see the full text)

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]

 

The CCRL strongly opposes the College of Nurses of Ontario’s Physician-Assisted Death: Interim Guidance for Nursing in Ontario

News Release

Catholic Civil Rights League

TORONTO, ON March 24, 2016 – The Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) sent the following letter to the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) in opposition to Physician-Assisted Death: Interim Guidance for Nursing in Ontario on grounds that its main recommendation seriously violates a nurse’s freedom of conscience and religion.

College of Nurses of Ontario
101 Davenport Rd. Toronto,
ON M5R 3P1

March 24, 2016

RE: College of Nurses of Ontario’s Physician-Assisted Death: Interim Guidance for Nursing in Ontario

The Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) strongly opposes the College of Nurses of Ontario’s Physician-Assisted Death: Interim Guidance for Nursing in Ontario on grounds that its main recommendation seriously violates a nurse’s freedom of conscience and religion. Page 3 of the document states:

…some nurses may have conscientious objections to participating in physician-assisted death. Both the Special Joint Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying of the Parliament of Canada and the Provincial-Territorial Expert Advisory Group on Physician-Assisted Dying have recommended that health care professionals who have conscientious objections should refer or transfer a client to another health care provider. If no other caregiver can be arranged, you must provide the immediate care required.

We are hopeful that your suggestion of “immediate care” is in the noble tradition of the nursing profession to preserve life, and to provide medical assistance to save lives.  However, our fear is that your proposed guideline is suggestive that a nurse will be obliged in such circumstances to engage in the new Orwellian concept of “medical aid in dying”, a prospect for which polling suggests a majority of your membership vigorously disagrees.

If the final statement and the directive “you must provide the immediate care required” is intended to mean “medical aid in dying”, then your College has asserted the most jarringly outrageous example of forcing a health care professional to violate his or her conscience that has been proposed by any regulatory body in Canada. It even outweighs the aforementioned recommendations of the Special Joint Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying of the Parliament of Canada and the Provincial-Territorial Expert Advisory Group on Physician-Assisted Dying.

Whereas the CCRL submits that euthanasia and assisted suicide in itself is morally and ethically wrong, compelling another person to be involved in this morally and ethically depraved act is no less wrong.  As interveners in Carter,the CCRL focussed on the impact to health care in general and to the conscience rights of health care workers specifically.  We strongly advocated for a robust understanding and protection of the Charter right of freedom of conscience and religion.

The right to avoid moral complicity in assisted suicide and euthanasia is an essential part of one’s religious and conscientious freedom.

The CCRL appeals to the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) to strike from the interim guidance document the necessity to “provide the immediate care required” if “no other caregiver can be arranged.” This compulsion is morally unacceptable.

It is also unacceptable that nurses are treated so poorly, by their own governing college, no less. Instead of limiting nurses’ rights and violating their constitutional right to freedom of conscience and religion, the CNO ought to instead advocate for nurses who conscientiously object to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

As with any regulatory entity, the CNO has no business second-guessing the validity of sincerely held religious beliefs, exercised in the course of one’s professional judgment.

Christian Domenic Elia, PhD
Executive Director
Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) celia@ccrl.ca

Philip Horgan
President
Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) ccrl@ccrl.ca

About the CCRL

Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) (www.ccrl.ca) assists in creating conditions within which Catholic teachings can be better understood, cooperates with other organizations in defending civil rights in Canada, and opposes defamation and discrimination against Catholics on the basis of their beliefs. The CCRL was founded in 1985 as an independent lay organization with a large nationwide membership base. The CCRL is a Canadian non-profit organization entirely supported by the generosity of its members.

For further information:

Christian Domenic Elia, PhD
CCRL Executive Director
416-466-8244 @CCRLtweets

A Warning from Canada on Assisted Suicide: Physicians’ Conscience Rights at Stake

CNSNews.com

Lynn Wardle

Historically, assisted suicide (aiding a person to take his or her own life) was prohibited by the common law in Canada, as in all common law jurisdictions. Indeed, at common law suicide resulted in forfeiture of all goods and chattels of the suicide victim to the state.  A person who assisted a person to commit suicide also committed a felony.

Prohibitions against attempting suicide and assisting suicide were codified in Canada in 1892.  The attempting suicide law was challenged as infringing upon the protection for individual liberty in section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but the criminal prohibition against assisted suicide was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney General) in 1993.

The statutory prohibition of attempting suicide was repealed in Canada in 1972.  However, the criminal prohibition against assisting a person to commit suicide remained in Canada.

In February 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the prohibition of medical assistance in dying violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 5.  Now Parliament is working to codify the Carter ruling.

A special parliamentary committee was appointed to consider how to reform the law.  On February 25, 2016, the Special Joint Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying delivered to the Parliament of Canada its Report on “Medical Assistance in Dying: A Patient-Centred Approach, February 2016, 42nd Parliament, 1st Session.”

The Report contains 21 recommendations.  Some of them are unobjectionable, but some are troubling to some thoughtful observers and medical ethicists, and a few are dangerously disrespectful of the rights and consciences of marginalized populations. The Report evades, brushes aside, or bulldozes over some very serious ethical issues. . . [Full text]