Comments in the December, 2001, Bulletin of the College of Physicians and Surgeons\u00a0\u00a0came to media attention in February, 2002, generating pressure on\u00a0conscientious objectors in New Brunswick.\u00a0 Catholic Bishop J.\u00a0\u00a0Edward Troy responded to the news reports in this letter, reproduced\u00a0with permission of the author.\u00a0 – Administrator-<\/em>]<\/h5>\nThe headline on the front page, “MDs’ morals restricting birth\u00a0control access” (Telegraph-Journal, Feb. 9) was eye-catching. Upon reading the piece, I learned the reporter was culling from the Bulletin of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick (CPSNB) in which it was recorded that at its meeting of Nov. 23, 2001, its council discussed the implications of the right of physicians not to participate\u00a0in a treatment or process to which they morally object.<\/p>\n
In other words, the Code of Ethics of the College quite properly permits physicians to practice their profession in accordance with their\u00a0conscience. The discussion, as recorded in the bulletin, is repeated\u00a0\u00a0almost in its entirety in the Telegraph-Journal. It was particularly\u00a0noted that some patients are not referred for an abortion or do not\u00a0receive advice on contraception from their doctors. This is followed by\u00a0 comments (not contained in the bulletin) from one physician in Saint\u00a0John who doesn’t have the same moral qualms, and by some remarks from\u00a0\u00a0the administrator of the Morgentaler abortion facility in Fredericton.<\/p>\n
There is an underlying indignation present in the article more suitable\u00a0to an opinion piece than to a news report. The writer goes back to Nov. 23 for this information which is given headline treatment on Feb. 9,\u00a0\u00a0breathlessly zeroing in on the roughly eight per cent of the text in the college bulletin that considers the case of patients whose doctors\u00a0refuse to counsel abortion or contraception because of their moral\u00a0 principles.<\/p>\n
Nothing about the other important matters the council deliberated upon\u00a0 and which were reported in the pages of the same bulletin. Nothing about\u00a0\u00a0the patient who died from a heart attack after being refused treatment\u00a0for heart disease. Nothing about the instances where allegations of\u00a0\u00a0malpractice were lodged against doctors for a variety of reasons that\u00a0 resulted in loss of life or serious illness. Nothing about the extremely\u00a0difficult choices physicians are faced with every day and the honest\u00a0 efforts the vast majority of them make to serve their patients with\u00a0\u00a0integrity and skill, but also with fallibility and occasional failure.<\/p>\n
No, the focus, in a somewhat negative and disapproving fashion, on the\u00a0 good news that physicians are acting conscientiously in their\u00a0professional lives. Indeed I was impressed and heartened by all that I\u00a0read in the bulletin precisely because it revealed the conscientious\u00a0 manner in which the council of the CPSNB monitors and guides its\u00a0members.<\/p>\n
I doubt very much the CPSNB would wish to change its code of ethics so\u00a0as to require physicians to disregard their consciences, especially\u00a0today when there are factions promoting euthanasia and\u00a0 physician-assisted suicide. While the code of ethics of the CPSNB does\u00a0\u00a0not allow the doctor to impose his moral views on the patient, it would\u00a0be equally objectionable to insist that the patient be authorized to\u00a0\u00a0impose his or her moral outlook on the doctor. One hears of patients demanding a prescription for this or that drug; should the physician be\u00a0 obliged to comply? There is reference in the newspaper piece to the\u00a0 “morning after pill” that is not really a contraceptive but\u00a0rather an abortifacient.<\/p>\n
Pro-life doctors do not perform or cause abortions nor do they\u00a0\u00a0co-operate with others in procuring an abortion. They rightly consider\u00a0that abortion is the taking of a human life at an early stage in its\u00a0\u00a0development.<\/p>\n
In today’s social and cultural climate, the opposition to contraception is not easily understood, let alone accepted. This is not surprising\u00a0\u00a0since the whole idea of any binding moral principles in the area of\u00a0\u00a0sexuality is widely rejected. According to the lax standards prevalent\u00a0in our culture, no sexual behaviour is morally wrong – fornication,\u00a0promiscuity, adultery, masturbation, homosexuality, bestiality, etc.<\/p>\n
With the exception of child sexual abuse, the guiding rationale seems to be a light-hearted “different folks, different strokes!”<\/p>\n
If a person adheres to this sexual libertinism, he or she is not likely to be persuaded by any amount of argumentation that artificial methods\u00a0\u00a0of contraception are wrong, nor will he or she be able or willing to\u00a0\u00a0grasp the distinction between them and natural family planning. He or\u00a0she will not see that the warm embrace of contraception has led\u00a0logically and historically to the widespread acceptance of abortion.<\/p>\n
While the views of the administrator of the Morgentaler facility were\u00a0 completely predictable, she really demonstrates a lot of nerve in\u00a0lecturing physicians about ethics. “I think it’s very irresponsible\u00a0of doctors not to be meeting patients’ needs, regardless of their personal opinion or religious beliefs,” she is quoted as saying.\u00a0 Now this judgment comes from someone who is managing a business devoted\u00a0\u00a0to the destruction of babies in the womb!<\/p>\n
Talk about the moral high ground! Also, please observe the mentality\u00a0\u00a0revealed in this declaration. If the abortionists were in charge, they would require people to act against their conscience. These are the same\u00a0\u00a0folks that are always whining about pro-life people who, they say, wish\u00a0to impose their morality on them. However, it’s apparently all right for\u00a0\u00a0the pro-abortion people to impose their morality on the rest of us.<\/p>\n
She is also reported complaining that “many” women who had\u00a0 been refused birth control pills by doctors were using other methods\u00a0such as condoms and became pregnant. Was that a slip of the tongue?\u00a0\u00a0Doesn’t she belong to the school that keeps insisting that condoms\u00a0\u00a0should be made available to teens and others so that they won’t become\u00a0\u00a0pregnant or contract AIDS? What about all that propaganda about\u00a0\u00a0“safe sex?” It appears that she knows, as everyone should,\u00a0\u00a0that condoms do fail with the result that the woman becomes pregnant or\u00a0 the unaffected partner gets AIDS.<\/p>\n
I salute physicians – no doubt the vast majority of practitioners – who\u00a0refuse to ignore conscience and moral principle in the exercise of their\u00a0\u00a0calling. I honour physicians who do not derive their notions of what is\u00a0\u00a0right and wrong from popular magazines or from the superficial opinions\u00a0of “celebrities” or from Hollywood script writers or from\u00a0harangues by those who operate abortuaries.<\/p>\n
Doctors have access to a long and solid tradition of medical ethics.\u00a0 It’s encouraging to see that so many continue to draw on that wisdom in\u00a0the practice of their profession and aren’t easily swayed by the fog of\u00a0\u00a0moral indifference which covers so much of the world today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Brunswick, Canada 14 February, 2002 J. Edward Troy, Bishop Emeritus of \u00a0Saint John Rothesay [Comments in the December, 2001, Bulletin of the College of Physicians and Surgeons\u00a0\u00a0came to media attention in February, 2002, generating pressure on\u00a0conscientious objectors in New Brunswick.\u00a0 Catholic Bishop J.\u00a0\u00a0Edward Troy responded to the news reports in this letter, reproduced\u00a0with permission … Continue reading “Letter to the Telegraph Journal”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5432,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,88,32,33,4,5,247],"tags":[120,1251,195],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-birth-control","category-canada","category-codes-of-ethics","category-commentary","category-ethics","category-morning-after-pill","tag-college-of-physicians-and-surgeons-of-new-brunswick","tag-henry-morgentaler","tag-j-edward-troy"],"yoast_head":"\r\nLetter to the Telegraph Journal - Protection of Conscience Project News<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=779\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Letter to the Telegraph Journal - Protection of Conscience Project News\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"New Brunswick, Canada 14 February, 2002 J. 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