Tag: abandonment

Conscientious objection: Can a hospital refuse to provide treatment?

Baylor College of Medicine

Claire Horner

Canada recently legalized medical assistance in dying (MAiD), which allows patients to receive a lethal drug that they can self-administer, or be administered a lethal drug by an authorized clinician with consent of the patient. As provinces and territories work to create and clarify legal guidelines for providing MAiD, many Catholic hospitals have refused to offer it, citing opposition to physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in Catholic moral teaching.

This controversy surrounding institutional conscience-based refusals raises an important question: Should a health care institution have the right to refuse to provide a particular treatment for conscience-based reasons? . . . [Full text]

Not referring patients for euthanasia is a matter of conscience

Re: Balancing one right with another for access to assisted dying, June 14

Toronto Star

Lucas Vivas

Mr. Warren misrepresents what is meant in medicine by a referral. In referring a patient to another physician, I make a pledge of responsibility to that patient that I am acting in their best interest. Whether that other physician proceeds or not with a given intervention is immaterial to my duty to only refer for the good of the patient. . . [Full text]