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Category: Society & Politics
Controversial conscience rights bill in limbo as fall sitting wraps up
Standing committee recommended Bill 207 not proceed to second reading
CBC News
The fate of a controversial private members’ bill on conscience rights for medical providers is in limbo as the fall sitting of the Alberta legislature wraps up this week.
On Monday, MLAs were to debate whether they would accept a report from the standing committee on private bills and private members’ bills, which recommended Bill 207 not proceed to second reading. . . the house was suddenly adjourned after a man died by suicide on the steps of the legislature building. . . [Full text]
Freedom of conscience needs to be protected in Canada
National Post
Reproduced with permission
Garnett Genuis
At the federal level, I have consistently sought to advance the protection of conscience in legislation and policy. A right to freedom of conscience is enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and is part of other human rights documents going back to before Confederation.
Protection of conscience has a strong moral and intellectual basis. The most important freedom we all have is the right to an independent and personal search for truth–to do what we believe right and avoid what we believe wrong, insofar as doing what we believe right does not involve some act of violence against another person.
If a person can be compelled to accept the state’s notion of right and wrong regardless of his or her own conscience, then what is left of the notion of individual freedom?
There has been much discussion recently about freedom of conscience and religion in the context of religious symbols. Importantly, though freedom of conscience has to go beyond external symbols. If you believe that a Muslim woman should be free to wear a hijab at work, do you believe that that same Muslim woman should be free to abstain from participation in, say, euthanasia, if such participation conflicts with her conscientious beliefs? Conscience is a matter of what is inside your head, not just of what you put on your head.
In the last Parliament, Conservatives sought to amend the government’s euthanasia legislation to protect the conscience rights of medical practitioners. Many doctors would prefer not to participate in euthanasia. Requiring them to do so will not improve access because it will force those with a strong conscientious objection out of the profession or out of the country. This is a serious concern given the limited number of doctors practising palliative care. Fewer palliative care doctors means more pain at the end of life and less access to the accommodation and comfort that people under such pain deserve.
Notably, our efforts to protect conscience through our opposition motion were supported in a vote on May 17, 2016, by all present Conservative MPs (including Stephen Harper, Rona Ambrose, and Jason Kenney) as well as by five NDP MPs–Charlie Angus, Alistair MacGregor, Gord Johns, Sheila Malcolmson, and Erin Weir.
For good reason. In light of the failure to act at the federal level to protect conscience and ensure access to vital services, a provincial MLA has proposed legislation to affirm conscience protection here in Alberta (Bill 207). This legislation would mean no substantive change for anyone–it simply codifies into legislation what is already the rule and practise for physicians in Alberta. It does not provide a right to refuse service on the basis of identifiable characteristics–only on the basis of well-founded conscientious objection. It is a necessary legislative step because it ensures that doctors in Alberta won’t face a situation in the future where the regulatory body tries to take away conscience protection.
It is fascinating to observe how apoplectic many on the political left have become over proposals like Bill 207 to protect conscience. Apparently the road to Gilead is paved with conscience rights protection. (People who say such things have probably never actually read A Handmaid’s Tale).
Many on the left have embraced the inverted vocabulary of another dystopian novel, 1984. To them, the protection of something as basic as conscientious objection has been re-imagined as an attack on someone else’s freedom. But nobody’s right to anything should be a basis for compelling someone else to provide that thing in violation of their conscience. Unlike the Alberta NDP, this is something that at least some members of the federal NDP understood well in the last Parliament.
Diversity isn’t just about the colour of your skin or the symbols you wear. Respecting diversity means allowing people with substantively different views of life to express their opinions and to access professions. A society that does not understand this is not a free society. It is, therefore, vitally important to ensure that Charter protections for freedom of conscience are taken seriously.
Disclosure:Garnett Genuis is the Conservative MP representing Sherwood Park–Fort Saskatchewan in Alberta.
Appeal to Belgian parliamentarians on medical ethics
Belgian Medical Society of Saint-Luc
We learn that our federal parliament wants to legislate again in the field of bioethics. In particular, parliamentarians from several parties are proposing two things, which we think have serious consequences.
First, they want to extend the duration allowed to abort; and extend the statutory period to 18 weeks, instead of 12 weeks.
These parliamentarians vote among themselves, a text and a law, that they do not intend to bring to the public discussion. This is indeed how representative democracy works; and it is their privilege not to have to consider any other opinion than theirs.
However, in such a sensitive subject, where it is decided which living being can be cut off from society and its protection; where we decide who deserves the name of a human being and who does, it seems to us that the voice that publicly opposes this decision must also be heard. It can not be said later that no one has opposed it.
We therefore call for a major public debate on this important issue.
However, we wonder about the real willingness to take into account proposals of this type. In fact, the example of France makes us rather pessimistic about the real sincerity of parliamentarians; where the advice received during the debate was put aside, without taking it into account, because the result was not the result expected by them.
Secondly, they want to force the conscience of the doctors.
Doctors who do not wish to participate in an act that they believe to be bad, will be forced by law to participate. There will be no more freedom of conscience.
Would the law be superior to medical ethics? This is not the opinion of our association.
Of course, the execution of a seriously unjust order of the act lessens the responsibility of the physician, but does not make it completely disappear. The responsibility of the physician in the collaboration to this act therefore proceeds from the Law, to which obedience is due.
But it is this same reasoning that has sentenced the executors of national socialist decisions in the last century from the point of view of moral responsibility.
The state constraint, therefore, never makes the individual moral responsibility disappear.
On this basis, we urge the recognition and protection of the law, the freedom of conscience of physicians, and the recognition of the autonomy of our medical ethics.
This medical ethics is currently fairly widespread worldwide, as re-stated by the World Medical Association, which concludes in the beginning of life, that “it is a matter of personal conviction and conscience that must be respected. “(Medical Ethics Manual, 3rd Edition, p. 57).
In faith whereof, we make this appeal to our parliamentarians.
Dr. Henri Marechal
President of the Belgian Medical Society of Saint-Luc
Brussels, 18 November 2019
Catholic Medical Association Belge Saint-Luc
p/a Abdij der Norbertijnen
Kerkplein 1
1850 Grimbergen
info@cathmed.be
Majority of people support legalising assisted suicide in Ireland
Campaigners have called for changes to the Irish law on assisted dying.
thejounal.ie
A MAJORITY OF Irish people believe that assisted suicide should be legalised in Ireland.
The latest Amárach/Claire Byrne Live poll for TheJournal.ie found that 55% of people think that assisted suicide should be legal in Ireland.
The poll found that 22% opposed the legalisation of assisted suicide, while 23% said they didn’t know. . .[Full text]