Tag: Barbara Kay

Doctors who conscientiously object to providing euthanasia referrals should not be forced to do so

National Post

Barbara Kay

From June 12 to 15, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice heard legal arguments relating to conscience rights for doctors in Ontario. Five doctors and three physicians’ organizations want the court to declare portions of policies created by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) a violation of doctors’ rights enshrined in the Charter. A decision is expected later this year.

CPSO, the respondent in the case, has stated they may suspend or sanction a doctor that refuses to participate in an assisted suicide, which they — duplicitously in my opinion — call “medical aid in dying” (MAID). Euthanasiasts prefer the euphemism because “aid in dying” sounds softer and gentler than “kill.” But the true definition of MAID is palliative care, whose future as a medical discipline has been thrown into uncertainty by the CPSO’s bullish stance on assisted suicide.

The CPSO’s conscience-hostile position is both unnecessary and unjust. . .  [Full text]

 

Keep the state out of the killing rooms of the nation

 National Post

Barbara Kay

Commentary following last Friday’s Supreme Court decision on assisted suicide has filled the pages of this and other Canadian publications. Opinion for and against the ruling has been intelligently debated. But I have yet to see a column that focuses directly on my own concerns, so here is my two cents.

I am firmly in the anti-euthanasia camp, as my last two columns have indicated. There is no question in my mind that once euthanasia is permitted to those capable of self-determination, “equality” activists will demand – and get – euthanasia for those who also suffer terribly, but are incapable of assenting to their own physician-enabled deaths. That has been proven to be the case in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Some readers assume that this also puts me in the anti-assisted-suicide camp as well. That is not the case. I find I have a more ambivalent position on this question. I support the right of any individual who finds life unbearable for whatever reason to take his own life. I therefore cannot in conscience refuse someone yearning to die, but incapable of carrying out his wish, the right to ask for assistance in achieving that goal. . . [Full Text]