A doctor speaks out about conscience rights

By An Ontario Doctor

I received a copy of this letter from a doctor. The doctor is writing about health care workers' conscience rights.

To my Member of Provincial Parliament of the Liberal Party,

I am deeply disappointed by the Liberal Party's willful disregard of the conscience rights of health care professionals when they voted in unison to defeat Bill 129 (An Act to amend the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991).

I realize now the utter powerlessness that minority citizens, like myself, have in the face of governments who have differing ideals.  I depended upon my elected member of parliament to speak for me, to be my voice and my vote on the one issue over which I have agonized for the past two years, an issue that has affected not only my freedom in how I practice my craft, but also the well being of countless patients (among whom you and I will be counted one day) who will be affected by the ramifications of this shift in health care policy.  I cannot help but to feel let down by both federal and provincial governments that have decided to play a political game based on faulty arguments which you and I both know are untrue.  For example, the argument of the patient who is so isolated and helpless that they cannot telephone to self-refer for MAID, is a fictitious patient that does not exist - but if on the rare occasion that such a patient actually did exist, then helping them to get on a pathway to be euthanized is perhaps the wrong immediate focus before other supports have been put into place first!

Which is why I don't understand the argument so often used by the Liberal party to discount conscience rights -  that upholding conscience rights would somehow limit access to service.  This argument is false, as has been shown in other jurisdictions that have allowed euthanasia and assisted suicide while still respecting conscience rights.  However, if the belief is that upholding conscience rights does in fact limit access to service, then this stated belief is incoherent with other statements made that conscience rights is already protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Preamble of C-14.  If conscience rights are, as stated, already protected, then what would be the harm of upholding these rights in legislation?  It is precisely because these rights are NOT sufficiently protected in light of the Carter decision that there is a need for explicit legislative protection, and which the Federal Government expected provinces to enact provincially.  Instead, the Ontario government has shirked its responsibility of protecting fundamental freedoms that are being eroded with seemingly no consequence to regulating colleges keen to impose policies that violate human rights due to their own faulty understanding of what it means to respect conscience rights.

Not enacting laws that protect freedom of conscience is analogous to saying, at the Federal level, that because everyone has a Charter Right to Life, there is no need for a law prohibiting murder because a person's right to life is already protected under the Charter.  Charter rights are guiding foundational principles upon which laws are created and by which they must abide.  Nowhere has there been any evidence produced that demonstrates upholding the Charter rights of Freedom of Conscience in Legislation infringes upon another person's right to life (which was the reason why physician-assisted suicide was permitted).  Furthermore, the Care Coordination System which the government has agreed to create (thank you very much) resolves the public fear of potential restrictions to access.  

A Charter of Rights and Freedoms is effective in granting rights only in so far as those words are respected in action, which, on this issue, has not been the case.

It is clear from the Liberal party's stance that it sides with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), which the Canadian Medical Association has stated holds an "impoverished" understanding of conscience, and which does not respect differences of conscience.  Just because one might believe it is okay to do something a certain way does not mean that another person believes the same.  And it is wrong to coerce another person in doing what they deeply believe to be wrong even if one may think it is for a perceived good (in this case, the death of a suffering person), no matter how hard one tries to justify this coercion by looking to other people who may have reconciled their own consciences with the objectionable act.  This is where differences in conscience plays out, and so far, the Liberal government has firmly decided it would only protect the conscience rights of some, but not all, health professionals in trying to achieve that "balance" so oft spoken.

What your party has demonstrated by word and action is that it is okay to not respect those who cannot participate in an effective referral for the death of their patient.  If this is not what you believe, and only what your party has asked you to support, then I am truly sorry that you are placed in a position in which you must contort your own words and actions so as to align yourself with what has been asked of you, without the freedom to voice what you truly believe.  And if your words and actions are indeed a true representation of what you believe and stand for, then I am saddened that you are unable to see the truth behind the harms that your beliefs and position will cause for the greater society.  One of the best, most comprehensive speeches I have heard on the subject was given by Cardinal Müller.  You may wish to read the full text here.

When the voice of reason became overshadowed by political antics on an issue that should never have become a victim of partisan politics, I came to the clear realization that if the majority government espouses values that are fundamentally different from my own, elected members of provincial parliament will only do what their Party dictates, and not, as I had previously supposed and hoped, what we elected them to be, as a voice for their constituents.  In casting my vote at the next election, I will bear this in mind, and favour a party (and not any one individual), that has demonstrated a commitment to upholding the fundamental freedoms upon which our democracy rests.

Despite my deep disappointment and sadness over a situation that remains incomprehensible to me, I just want you to know that I think of you and pray for you often, for your well-being, and for your good.  I ask that perhaps you might also do the same for me, and keep me in your prayers.

Sincerely,
your local physician

Doctors make charter challenge against CPSO

Doctors are doing a charter challenge against CPSO's discriminatory policy of forcing doctors to refer for procedurees that they conscientiously object to.

Good for the doctors.

CBC then reports this gem as the final line in their "news" report:

"The college also noted that it made the change only after a review process which included two public consultations."

What the CBC doesn't tell you in their so-called "news" item, is that those public consultations overwhelmingly supported doctor's freedom of conscience rights.

Good grief CBC, can you ever get out of the way of your own bias?

CPSO - Getting rid of pro-life doctors

The pro-abortions seem quite gleeful that doctors will now be forced to provide abortions and contraception.

Dr. Carol Leet president of CPSO says there have been complaints:

"There have been some complaints about access to care".

How many complaints? A handful? One?

Its pretty hard to believe that access is a problem, with the number of "pro-choice" doctors out there.

So what's the real motivation for this policy? I think CPSO just wants to rid their profession of pro-life doctors. Discrimination by any other name.

Pro-deathers run the show

CPSO's so-called consultation with the public on conscience rights was a farce. I think they already knew they were going to force doctors to act against their consciences. Consultations had to be pretend, since feedback was overwhelmingly against the new policy, yet CPSO is still going to implement it.

Seems that the pro-deathers are working overtime. First it was abortion, then assisted suicide, and now we are going to force doctors to do both. What's next, killing infants and those over 60?

The College of Physicians and Surgeons in Ontario should be ashamed of themselves.

When evil spreads

Last week Maureen and I prayed at the Ottawa abortion clinic. It was very cold. It was very sad. It's always sad there. How could it not be?

In fact Canada is a very sad country, and getting sadder every day it seems. Unlimited abortion on demand, and now we'll have an assisted suicide regime to follow in abortion's foosteps.

And the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario wants to force doctors to refer anyway, even when they object to these practices.

While the world is outraged over ISIS, all of this is going on in our own backyard. With hardly a peep of protest from the average person.

It seems that prayer in front of an abortion clinic is all that some of us can do to stem the tide of the evil. A tide that's spreading. Right in front of our noses.

Conscience rights for doctors more important than ever

Now that the Supreme Court has struck down Canada’s laws against assisted suicide, doctor's conscience rights are even more important. Watch this short video.

Visit CMDScanada.org for more information

Deadline to submit feedback is Feb. 20, 2015 in Ontario. Visit the CPSO site to provide feedback and to view the policy entitled "Professional Obligations and Human Rights" .

CPSO's "effective referral" policy misunderstood by spokesperson?

CPSO is seeking public input on a draft policy that would force doctors to refer for services which they are legally entitled to.

From the National Post:

"If ap­proved, the new pol­icy would re­quire doc­tors to make those re­fer­rals. 

In an emer­gency, doc­tors would even have to pro­vide ser­vi­ces them­selves, re­gardless of re­li­gious be­lief. 

Sim­i­lar poli­cies are al­read­y in place in Al­berta, Mani­toba, Que­bec and New Bruns­wick, 

Dr. Ga­bel says: “This is noth­ing new.”"

But Dr. Marc Gabel is wrong to say Alberta, Manitoba and NB have "similar" policies to CPSO's "effective referral" policy.

CPSO's "effective referral" is:

"Where physicians are unwilling to provide certain elements of care due to their moral or religious beliefs, an effective referral to another health care provider must be provided to the patient. An effective referral means a referral made in good faith, to a non-objecting, available, and accessible physician or other health care provider."

Those provinces require a referral to a doctor who will provide information about a procedure, not the procedure itself. See: Appendix 3 of CPSO's annual meeting of Council.

New Brunswick:
Referrals: When moral or religious beliefs prevent a physician from providing or offering access to information about a legally available medical or surgical treatment or service, that physician must ensure that the patient who seeks such advice or medical care is offered timely access to another physician or resource that will provide accurate information about all available medical options.

Manitoba:
Referrals: If the moral or religious beliefs of a member prevent him or her from providing or offering access to information about a legally available medical treatment or procedure, the member must ensure that the patient who seeks that advice or medical care is offered timely access to another member or resource that will provide accurate information about all available medical options.

Alberta:
Referrals: When moral or religious beliefs prevent a physician from providing or offering access to information about a legally available medical or surgical treatment or service, that physician must ensure that the patient who seeks such advice or medical care is offered timely access to another physician or resource that will provide accurate information about all available medical options.

See my previous posts on CPSO and conscientious objection here and here.

CPSO is taking a dangerous position on conscience rights

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), wants to change how doctors are required to refer for care. Their draft policy, Professional Obligations and Human Rights states:

“Where physicians are unwilling to provide certain elements of care due to their moral or religious beliefs, an effective referral to another health care provider must be provided to the patient. An effective referral means a referral made in good faith to a non-objecting, available and accessible physician or other health-care provider. The referral must be made in a timely manner to reduce the risk of adverse clinical outcomes. Physicians must not impede access to care for existing patients, or those seeking to become patients”

Here are four reasons why CPSO shouldn't go ahead with this bad policy.

1) Freedom of conscience for doctors. It is wrong to force doctors to betray their conscience. This is not a difficult concept to understand. A civilized society does not force anyone to act against their conscience. And if a doctor is forced to refer for a procedure that is against her conscience, she is complicit in the act itself, which is the same (morally) as performing the act herself. This is wrong and against every moral definition one can think of.

2) Patient/doctor trust. If a patient knows their doctor can leave their conscience at the door when it comes to abortion, contraception or assisted suicide, how can the patient be expected to trust their doctor with their other health issues?

3) Retroactive requirements. Changing the guidelines in this way, is an unethical act towards the doctors affected. When doctors who are currently practicing, or are in medical school, first became doctors, they did so with the understanding that they would be able to conscientiously object to procedures that are against their conscience (including referring to another doctor).

This change would be a retroactive requirement of being a doctor. This is patently unfair to doctors. It means that doctors who are already in the profession or are in medical school, and chose the profession based on the current guidelines that do uphold their freedom of conscience rights, will now be expected to act according to a new and very different set of rules. Many doctors would have no choice but to leave their chosen profession in order to not be forced to be complicit in acts they find morally reprehensible.

4) Loss of livelihood to doctors. The huge investments required to become a doctor in the first place (time, money, family dependency on the doctor's livelihood, etc), would all be thrown away. Not only would these doctors who have invested large sums of money and time in becoming a doctor be forced to quit, but their entire livelihood would be at risk, and the livelihood of their families.

Dr. Marc Gabel who works for CPSO and is the chair of the college’s policy working group reviewing “Professional Obligations and Human Rights”, seems to have no problem with the harmful consequences this policy would impose on doctors:

“It may well be that you would have to think about whether you can practice family medicine as it is defined in Canada and in most of the Western countries.”

Dr. Gabel's flippant dismissal of the very real dilemma this new policy would incur for many doctors is worrisome. Forcing doctors to either refer for procedures that go against their conscience or, leave their profession altogether, is not a trivial matter.

These are all very serious considerations. CPSO and Dr. Gabel need to seriously rethink this policy because of these negative outcomes for doctors, the patients they treat, and society as a whole.

Doctors and members of the public can comment on the draft policy up to Feb. 20. Submit your comments here.

Conscience, Mind Manipulation, and the 4th “R”

Response to the Globe and Mail’s Dec. 11 editorial: "Ontario MDs should not refuse contraception out of religious belief"

By Jean Maloney

I found something quite outstanding about this editorial.

While it is clear the editorialist does not support physicians’ freedom to practice medicine according to conscience, what especially stands out for me is the lack of any cogent argument in defense of that position.

Let me say right off, I will not attempt in this article to defend freedom of conscience (although I do support it.) Rather, I will explain how the G&M’s attempt to justify its position against freedom of conscience is flawed. It behooves all of us to assess with a critical mind arguments put forward to justify a particular position on any controversial issue and not be misled by what might sound reasonable, but in fact, is either untrue or unsubstantiated.

To start with, there is an underlying false premise in the opening line: “A physician who is predisposed by faith or belief to make negative moral judgments about a patient is a bad doctor.” However, one needs to read the second paragraph before being able to put that opening line into context and thereby recognize the false premise. In the second paragraph we read: “The need for a new policy became clear when an Ottawa woman was turned away from a walk-in clinic last February after she attempted to get a refill on her birth-control medication – a rejection letter from one of the clinic’s doctors cited his ethical and religious objections.”

The G&M editorialist is in essence saying that the Ottawa doctor’s refusal to prescribe the birth-control pill to the woman amounts to that doctor making a “negative moral judgment about a patient.”

And that is false.

Although it is possible the woman may have felt that a negative moral judgment was being made about her, in fact, the physician was making a moral judgment not about her but about himself. He believed, for reasons having to do with medical judgment, professional ethics, and religious belief, that it would be wrong for him to prescribe the birth control pill, and thus to do so would make him culpable in an immoral act.

No one can get into the mind and heart of another person, and so no one is capable of judging the moral culpability of someone else, even if one might believe the action itself to be immoral. It would be up to the woman who wanted the pill to do her own conscientious reflection and morally judge herself. No one else can do it for her.

The G&M goes on to say “We turn to physicians to resolve our most intimate problems with wisdom and compassion and fairness, not to be rejected because we don't fit a sacred model.” But physicians who allow their moral/ethical code to inform their practice believe they are treating patients with “wisdom and compassion and fairness.” So it is clear that the G&M editorialist is using the words “wisdom” “compassion” and “fairness” to mean something entirely different than what conscientious physicians would mean by those terms. Yet without explaining what is meant by those three terms and showing how the physicians fall short of embodying the three qualities those terms express, the statement means nothing. And so it cannot advance the G&M’s argument (i.e. it carries no weight in defending the G&M’s position that physicians should simply give a patient the treatment they request, regardless of any objections the physician might have to that treatment).

Likewise with this statement: “But the College has refused to come down harshly on doctors who let their religious views get in the way of their duty to provide care.” The G&M has given no evidence that “religious views get in the way of [the Ottawa physicians’] duty to provide care.” The Ottawa physicians believe that prescribing the birth control pill is not a helpful form of care (why that is so is beyond the scope of this article). These physicians provide Natural Family Planning (NFP). That is the form of care they believe best comports with good medicine and respect for the dignity of their patients. And no doubt the Ottawa physician would have provided that care if the woman had requested it. Yet the G&M has given nothing to back up its claim that prescribing the birth control pill is good medical care, or why the alternative that the physicians do provide – NFP – is unacceptable medical care, or how the physician’s religious views got in the way.

Two more unsubstantiated claims that the editorialist makes are that conscientious physicians “confuse a religious judgment with a medical decision” and “substitute personal belief for science.” First of all, what does the editorialist mean by “religious judgment” and how is choosing not to prescribe the birth control pill an example of it? The editorialist doesn’t say. How is choosing not to prescribe the birth control pill not a medical decision? The editorialist doesn’t say. And how is prescribing the pill scientific but not prescribing it is not? Again, the editorialist doesn’t say.

Claim after claim made by the G&M editorialist is either untrue or unsubstantiated. If there is an argument to be made for forcing physicians to prescribe the birth control pill, the G&M hasn’t made it.

We arrive finally at what is so disturbing about this G&M editorial. It is not always easy to spot the lack of logically coherent arguments in opinion pieces. The reader may fail to recognize that a claim has not been backed up with evidence and may confuse opinion with fact. In the absence of sound reasoning, the reader may be swayed simply by emotionally evocative words and themes, for example, “wisdom and compassion and fairness,” “religious judgment,” “sinner,” “rejection,” “duty to provide care,” “dignity,” “personal belief vs science,” and so on.

This is disturbing. One would hope newspaper editorialists would feel duty bound, by their own professional code of ethics, to give a thoughtful reasoned argument in defence of their position, especially when something as fundamental as freedom of conscience is at stake, and when there is the potential for a whole class of citizens to be excluded from the medical profession if the draft policy of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is adopted.

Instead, the G&M editorialist has chosen to make misleading and unsubstantiated claims using language that can manipulate readers into bypassing their own logical thought processes.

The important lesson here for anyone who wants to protect their minds from being manipulated into accepting potentially dangerous ideas, is this: learn to think critically. Learn to spot logical fallacies / errors in reasoning. There are courses and books and articles, in print and online, on Critical Thinking /Argument /Logical Reasoning. Why such courses aren’t compulsory in school, is a mystery to me.

Along with the existing 3 “R’s” – Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic – we ought to add a 4^th “R” to the core curriculum in our schools: Reasoning.

Equipped with the basic tools of logic, we will be better able to withstand the attempts by others, especially those in positions of power, to confuse and mislead us.

Leaving morals at the door is not possible

Below is a submission one resident of Ontario sent to the College of Physicians and Surgeons regarding CPSO's recent policy review on conscience rights.

Re: Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code

Thank you for the opportunity to provide input to your policy review process.

As a resident of Ontario, I urge you to uphold physicians’ freedom to practice medicine in

Ontario according to their deeply held conscientious beliefs. To quote Murphy and Genuis,

“willingness to do what one believes to be wrong must never be made a condition for

participation in public life or for membership in professional organizations.”1

If we coerce physicians into violating their consciences, I am concerned about the emotional

harm that could be inflicted on these physicians.

In their paper, Murphy and Genuis discuss how a sense of shame and guilt often haunt people

who have been forced into doing what they believe is wrong. It seems to me that such shame and

guilt could end up having significant detrimental effects on physicians’ health. While we often

hear from opponents of conscience protection that patients have the “right” to various non emergency

medical treatments (e.g. abortion, the birth control pill, etc.), in practice, how severe

and long-lasting is the harm, if any, that is actually done to patients when they are unable to

obtain that treatment immediately from a particular physician? And how does this stack up

against the potential harm to the physician who is forced to consistently violate his/her

conscience? It would seem to me that the supposed harm to these patients is more in the nature of

a possible inconvenience and thus cannot outweigh the potential harm that would be suffered by

the physician whose sense of moral integrity is at stake.

It is worth pointing out that the very Supreme Court Justice who (alone among seven Justices)

found that women have a “right to abortion,” spoke strongly in defence of freedom of

conscience. Madam Justice Bertha Wilson, in her reasons for judgment in the 1988 Morgentaler

decision striking down Canada’s abortion law, believed that it was inappropriate for the state to

take sides in the abortion debate,2 as to do so “is not only to endorse but also to enforce...one

conscientiously-held view at the expense of another. It is to deny freedom of conscience to some,

to treat them as means to an end, to deprive them, as Professor MacCormick puts it, of their

‘essential humanity.’” 3

1 Sean Murphy and Stephen J. Genuis, “Freedom of Conscience in Health Care: Distinctions and Limits,” Bioethical

Inquiry (2013) 10:347-354.

2 Although it is debatable whether the state could ever be truly neutral on the abortion issue since by definition

abortion involves competing interests (that of the woman’s vs that of the fetus’s), Justice Wilson’s comments at least

would imply that she felt third parties should not be forced to facilitate a woman’s choice to have an abortion.

Because if a third-party is forced against their will to take part in carrying out the woman’s choice, then that

person’s conscientiously-held beliefs are violated.

3 R v Morgentaler [1988] at page 179, http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/288/index.do

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By extension, then, to force physicians to engage in practices that violate their consciences

would be to enforce one conscientiously-held view at the expense of another. It would be to treat

these physicians as a “means to an end” and would deprive them of their “essential humanity.”

Not only is a physician’s “essential humanity” at stake when freedom of conscience is denied,

but more broadly so is our democratic political tradition, as Justice Wilson notes:

...an emphasis on individual conscience and individual judgment also lies at the heart ofour democratic political tradition. The ability of each citizen to make free and informeddecisions is the absolute prerequisite for the legitimacy, acceptability, and efficacy of oursystem of self-government. It is because of the centrality of the rights associated withfreedom of individual conscience both to basic beliefs about human worth and dignityand to a free and democratic political system that American jurisprudence hasemphasized the primacy or "firstness" of the First Amendment. It is this same centralitythat in my view underlies their designation in the Canadian Charter of Rights andFreedoms as "fundamental". They are the sine qua non of the political traditionunderlying the Charter . (underlining in original)4

Not only is there potential for great harm to come to physicians, but I believe harm will also

come to patients, should CPSO decide to remove conscience protection. If a physician is

“willing” to provide or refer for a treatment that the physician believes is harmful, and if the

physician does this over and over again, the physician’s conscience becomes dulled. What other

treatments in future will physicians be asked to perform or make referrals for? Without a

conscience to guide them, how can physicians ultimately practice good medicine? I for one

would not want to be treated by a doctor who was not guided by their conscience, who simply

provided a treatment in blind obedience to a state-mandated edict to “leave their morals at the

door.” 5 Conscience is a bulwark against oppression by the state.

In fact, “leaving morals at the door” is not actually possible. As Murphy points out, “...every

decision concerning treatment is a moral decision, whether or not the physician specifically

adverts to that fact.”6 So the question becomes, since morality will always be a part of the

practice of medicine, whose version of morality will triumph?

Murphy explains that colleagues of the objecting physician may be disturbed by what appears to

them as a moral judgment, but those non-objecting physicians are also making a moral

judgment—they judge the treatment to be good. This leads Murphy to conclude that “What

unsettles them is really not that the objector has taken a moral position on the issue, but that he

has made an explicit moral judgement that differs from their implicit one.”

4 R v Morgentaler [1988] at page 177. http://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/288/index.do

5 “I think it is outrageous that doctors have the right to deny things like birth control. I believe if they plan on being

in a profession that helps other people, they need to leave their morals at the door.” –Kate Desjardins as quoted by

the Globe & Mail in “Should doctors have the right to refuse to treat a patient,” June 27, 2014,

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/do-doctors-have-right-to-refuse-totreat/

article19383553/

6 Sean Murphy, “No more Christian doctors - Part 3: Religious Values,”

http://www.consciencelaws.org/background/procedures/birth002-03.aspx

Page 3

I think this is an important insight from Murphy. It can help us to understand not only the

objecting physician’s colleagues, but also the strong negative (over?) reaction of a patient who is

denied a treatment she believes she is entitled to, as in the case of Ottawa woman Kate

Desjardins who was outraged for being handed a letter stating that the doctor on duty at a walkin

clinic would not prescribe the birth control pill.7 While Ms. Desjardins may not realize it

herself, it is certainly plausible that her strong negative emotions could stem from a belief that

her own moral judgment was being challenged. Was it disconcerting for her to think that

someone else might have moral concerns about the birth control pill? Was someone making a

moral judgment on her?

Whatever emotions Ms. Desjardins experienced (whether she was consciously aware of their

origins or not), it is clear that the physician who objected to prescribing the pill was not making a

moral judgment on her (or any other potential patient for that matter), but a moral judgment on

himself. He believed, for reasons of medical judgment, professional ethics, and religious belief,

that it would be wrong for him to prescribe the pill. But if Ms. Desjardins interpreted his reaction

as a moral judgment on her, well that is unfortunate, but we can hardly blame the physician for

doing what he believes he needs to do to maintain his own integrity and human dignity.

Some opponents of conscience protection believe that if physicians are not required to perform a

procedure (such as abortion), they should at least be required to refer the patient to another

doctor who will provide the service. But referring a patient for a procedure that the physician

believes would be immoral to perform, is also immoral because it involves complicity in the act.

This notion of complicity is already recognized in our existing laws. Aiding and abetting a

criminal offence is itself a criminal offence, according to section 21 of Canada’s Criminal Code.8

Not to apply the same logic in the case of what one deems to be a moral offence seems logically

inconsistent.

If physicians who object to providing/referring for controversial treatments such as the birth

control pill, abortion, (and euthanasia and assisted suicide if they are legalized) are punished for

doing what they believe is right and good, then physicians who object to providing such

treatments could eventually be weeded out of the profession. That would leave only those

physicians who support such controversial treatments remaining. Is this fair to all those patients

who hold similar values to the objecting physicians? Such patients will then only have access to

physicians who hold fundamentally different beliefs about what is good.

Morality cannot be separated from medicine, or any other discipline, no matter how much some

in our society wish otherwise. Everyone has a belief system that guides their behaviour. A doctor

who believes that abortion is as valid an option to an unplanned pregnancy as giving birth is

7 “Should doctors have the right to refuse to treat a patient,” Kelly Grant, The Globe & Mail, June 27, 2014,

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/do-doctors-have-right-to-refuse-totreat/

article19383553/

8 http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/FullText.html

21. (1) Every one is a party to an offence who

 (a) actually commits it;

 (b) does or omits to do anything for the purpose of aiding any person to commit it; or

 (c) abets any person in committing it.

Page 4

simply not going to be able to relate in the same way to a pregnant woman who believes with all

her heart and soul that her baby is a human being, as would a physician who believes that child is

a human being and worthy of the same respect as a born human being. Or if the birth control pill

is not an option for a woman because of her religious beliefs, will she be able to access Natural

Family Planning as readily as Ms. Desjardins feels she is entitled to access the birth control pill?

If conscientious physicians, like the three in Ottawa who have been castigated because of their

refusal to provide some reproductive health services, are driven from the profession, then it

seems to me that such physicians would not be the only victims of discrimination – so would

countless patients in Ontario who would no longer have the opportunity to access physicians who

hold an ethical worldview similar to their own and thus to medical treatment informed and

guided by such ethical beliefs. Maybe that is the intention of Ms. Desjardins and some abortion

activists,9 but I do not believe it is the intention of CPSO. I would hope that the College would

respect the diversity of conscientiously held views amongst the people of Ontario and not enact

any policy that would effectively discriminate against an entire class of citizens.

For all of these reasons, I respectfully urge the College to uphold and protect physicians’

freedom of conscience.

Thank you once again for the opportunity to provide these comments.

9 “Doctors do not have the right to discriminate and deny basic health care,” Joyce Arthur, August 1, 2014;

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2014/08/doctors-do-not-have-right-to-discriminate-and-deny-basic-health-care

Freedom of conscience is for everyone including doctors

I'm always dumbfounded by the inane and gloriously off-the-wall-and-off-topic-comments I often read on articles posted online on anything that could be even remotely associated with pro-life viewpoints.

To see what I mean check out Andrea Mrozek's thoughtful and coherant article posted on Huffington Post about doctor's freedom of conscience rights.

I think some of these commentors might want to stop talking about their disdain at doctors practicing freedom of conscience rights--which I might add are actual rights and not make-believe rights like "abortion rights"--and instead educate themselves on the subject.

But no. They'd prefer to hear themselves blather on instead. I think they just like to see their name in print. I guess it makes them feel important.

So here's the thing. Freedom of conscience is a right guaranteed under our Canadian Charter. That means everyone, including doctors have this right. It's not a right for the few, it is a right for all.

If you don't like the fact that a doctor won't provide you with your contraception, then you are free to go elsewhere for it. Nobody's forcing you to go to that doctor. The choice crowd is in love with the word "choice". So use it. Because I'd prefer to know my doctor bases his medical expertise in concert with his conscience, and doesn't ignore it. I imagine there were doctors who went against their conscience in the concentration camps in Auschwitz. Not something (I hope) we would ever want from our own doctors.

Here's something else to ponder for those who who like to hear themselves talk and say nothing. Joyce Arthur also thinks conscientious objection for doctors shouldn't be allowed. But surprisingly, not all of her compatriots agree with her: Global Doctors for Choice, bpas (The British pregnancy Advisory Service), and the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics (IJGO), all believe that conscientious objection should be allowed.

Looking for doctors who support conscientious objection

I understand that some doctors have been writing to newspapers regarding their freedom of conscience rights. And that maybe those letters haven't been published in those newspapers.

If you or someone you know has written such a letter, if you want to send it to me I would be happy to publish them on my blog.

Send to me at maloneyp64@gmail.com