Tag: Neil Mahoney

Whose Rights Come First: Doctors’ or Patients’?

Medscape

Arthur L. Caplan

Hi. I’m Art Caplan. I’m at the Division of Medical Ethics at the NYU School of Medicine. Conscientious objection—everybody seems to be talking about it these days. What are the rights of physicians, pharmacists, nurses, or other healthcare workers to say that something may be legal but they refuse to do it?

This issue has come up particularly as more and more health systems are merging. You see Catholic hospitals merging with secular hospitals. Catholic hospitals have a huge presence in the American world of hospitals and nursing homes, probably accounting for 40% of all facilities. When mergers take place, whose values predominate? . . [Full text]

(Project response: Freedom of conscience in healthcare: “an interesting moral swamp?”)

Assisted Suicide Case About Doctor Fired from Catholic Health Network Challenges Religious Freedoms

Newsweek

Jeffery Martin

Centura Health, a Catholic health care network in Colorado, fired a doctor who attempted to help a terminally ill man end his life. According to KDVR, the lawsuit filed against Centura will be going back to state court where questions about freedom of religion could be raised.

Dr. Barbara Morris wanted to prescribe life-ending drugs to Neil Mahoney, a 64-year-old with incurable cancer. Centura’s policies against assisted suicide allegedly violated state law. KCNC reports that after asking a state court to declare that she could not be sanctioned for attempting to help her patient end his life, Dr. Morris was dismissed from her position. . . . [Full text]

Centura Health doctor’s firing sets off lawsuit, fight over Colorado’s assisted suicide law

7 The Denver Channel

The Associated Press

DENVER (AP) — After watching his mother die slowly when he stopped her medication, Neil Mahoney knew he wanted the option of ending his own life peacefully when a doctor told him in July that he had months to live after being diagnosed with cancer.

A physician was willing to help him do that under Colorado’s medically assisted suicide law, but she was fired by Centura Health, a Christian-affiliated health system, for violating its guidelines on the issue. . . [Full text]

Firing Doctor, Christian Hospital Sets Off National Challenge To Aid-In-Dying Laws

Kaiser Health News

JoNel  Aleccia

DENVER — A Christian-run health system in Colorado has fired a veteran doctor who went to court to fight for the right of her patient to use the state’s medical aid-in-dying law, citing religious doctrine that describes “assisted suicide” as “intrinsically evil.”

Centura Health Corp. this week abruptly terminated Dr. Barbara Morris, 65, a geriatrician with 40 years of experience, who had planned to help her patient, Cornelius “Neil” Mahoney, 64, end his life at his home. Mahoney, who has terminal cancer, is eligible to use the state’s law, overwhelmingly approved by Colorado voters in 2016.

The growing number of state aid-in-dying provisions are increasingly coming into conflict with the precepts of faith-based hospitals, which oppose the practice on religious grounds. . . [Full text]