July-September, 2001
September
The California Supreme Court on Wednesday will review the appeal court
decision in Catholic Charities v. Superior Court S099822. The appeal
court ruling would force a Catholic charity to abide by a state law
requiring employers to include contraception in health plans that cover
prescription drugs. [News
item]
In England, a new genetic screening service known as quantitative
fluorescence polymerase chain reaction (QF-PCR) is reported to be able to
detect 80 percent of foetal anomalies within two days of the test. The
availability of the test will likely increase the incidence of eugenic
screening, with adverse consequences for those who do not wish to
participate. [Discovery
Health] (See
Eugenic screening expected by French courts;
Supreme Court of Canada to hear 'wrongful birth' case;
No Christian gynaecologists and neonatologists in Netherlands ;
Catholics and Pro-lifers Being Forced Out of Ob/Gyn Profession;
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists requires eugenic
screening; Doctor sued for birth of Down Syndrome child)
An AP report from St. Cloud Minnesota, reports that members of the Minnesota
Medical Association were unable to agree that doctors should be forced to
provide sexual assault victims with the 'morning-after-pill', or refer
patients to someone who will. Instead, they sent the measure to their Board
of Trustees for more study. The 'morning-after-pill' is the popular name for
drugs that are given after sexual intercourse to prevent birth. Based on
concerns that such drugs may have an abortifacient effect, some health care
professionals refuse to prescribe or dispense the drug. Referring to the
motion, one participant said, "If this passes, I would resign my membership
. . . If it is put into law, I would disobey it."
http://www.startribune.com/stories/468/708116.html
Following a survey in the summer of 2001 that showed about 85% of Kansas
pharmacists support legislation to protect their freedom of conscience, the
Kansas Pharmacists Association met on 22 September and approved a resolution
that would protect pharmacists who object to providing drugs or services for
reasons of conscience.
Teachers' PREP (Professionalism, Representation, Ethics, Priorities) was
formed in Surrey, British Columbia, last year. The group held a forum on
November 10, 2000: "Protection of Conscience: Issues in Education". See
their website for further
information.
Visit the website of
the New York State Catholic Conference to see an example of a campaign being
waged against laws that would suppress freedom of conscience in health care.
The site includes:
- Bishops' statement on the Women's Health and Wellness Act
- Press release on the Women's Health and Wellness Act
- Conscience protection in context
- Sample letter to State Senators
- Sample letter to Members of the Assembly
- Press release on Catholic Conference ad campaign
- Catholic Conference newspaper ad
- Catholic Conference Post Card campaign
- Parish bulletin insert
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service plans to make legal abortions
available within three weeks by 2005, and is planning a "radical overhaul of
abortion methods" to achieve this goal. The United Kingdom's
Abortion Act provides some protection for conscientious objectors, but
the BPAS plans bear watching to ensure that they do not result in coercion
of those who do not want to be involved with abortion.
[BBC]
While euthanasia is illegal under Swiss national law, the
BBC reports that it is tolerated in some Swiss cantons, provided strict
rules are followed. It is apparently not regarded as a crime if a doctor
assists in suicide by dispensing lethal drugs to a person close to a painful
death for his own use.
The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League of Pennsylvania
is seeking mandatory insurance coverage for contraceptive chemicals and
devices.
Jill Stanek, a pro-life nurse who exposed the "live birth abortion" policy
at Christ Hospital and Medical Center in the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn,
Illinois, has been fired. The hospital denies that she was dismissed for
having pro-life views, and the circumstances are rather involved. Stanek was
once suspended for leaking confidential papers, and twice put on "final
warning" probation after breaking an unspecified rule in her contract. She
was also admonished by a hospital Board of Review because it was alleged
that her pro-life activism had, "contributed to a negative working
environment" . Stanek testified before the U.S. House Judiciary in favour of
the Born Alive Infants Protection Act in July, and her pro-life activism
received media attention about two weeks before she was fired.
Stanek explained that her "final warning" was given because she had
encouraged the picketing of the home of a doctor who performed abortions.
Although Stanek has been clearly motivated by conscientious conviction,
the case does not involve conscientious objection or refusal, since it does
not appear that the hospital dismissed her for refusing to participate in
abortions. Rather, the issue appears to be an alleged limitation on an
employee's freedom of speech. [Chicago Tribune, Daily Southtown]
In November, 2001, Diane Arnder consented to have her daughter, Tina
Cartrette, removed from life support. Cartrette, suffering from cerebral
palsy, had suffered seizures since infancy and had been institutionalised at
the age of five. She had never walked, talked or fed herself, and in the
last months of her life had frequently been admitted to hospital for
infections, fever and dehydration. In the two months preceding her death she
had curled into a fetal position, her fists tightly closed.
When her respirator was removed, Cartrette began breathing on her own. At
that point, apparently because it was clear that she was not going to die
from respiratory failure, her feeding tubes, hydration and antibiotics were
cut off. A disabled rights group obtained a court order restoring life
support three days later, but her mother appealed, and Cartrette was
eventually taken off life support a second time. She died several days
later. It is not clear from the news report whether her death was the result
of respiratory failure or dehydration, starvation, and deprivation of
antibiotics. [Raleigh (NC) News & Observer; September 1, 2001]
The critical issue in this type of case is the distinction between
treatment and
care. Health care workers who do not object to the withdrawal of
artificial respirators may object to the withdrawal of food, fluids and
ordinary medical treatment as a form of
euthanasia.
August
A woman from Luton, southern England, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis (motor neuron or Lou Gehrig's disease), has secured a High Court
ruling that allows her to challenge the refusal of the director of public
prosecutions to offer immunity to her husband if he helps her to commit
suicide. She argued that assisted suicide could be justified by a right to
privacy and a right to freedom from inhumane or degrading treatment. If a
court accepts this reasoning, health care workers might well be confronted
by demands that they participate in assisted suicide or euthanasia in order
to respect the rights of their patients (for example, see
Re: Rodriguez).
[BBC]
A union official asserts that three more women in the Washington D.C. Fire
and Emergency Medical Services have disclosed that they had abortions
because they feared the loss of their jobs, bringing to four the number of
women thus affected. Senior administrators and Mayor Anthony A. Williams are
reported to be taking the allegations very seriously. It is being suggested
that there has been an unwritten policy of discouraging pregnancies for
years.
More DC Medics Say They Were Forced to Have Abortions
A union official and other sources have accused a senior senior
administrator of the Washington, D.C. fire department's Emergency Medical
Service of forcing an employee to have an abortion by threatening her with
dismissal. It is alleged that about eight new medics were told that they
could not become pregnant because they are on probation for a year and have
no job benefits.
The administrator is said to have told one of the medics, who was pregnant,
that she should get an abortion if she wanted to keep her job. The 21 year
old woman, a Roman Catholic, was sufficiently intimidated by the threat that
she had an abortion. She is reported to have suffered medical problems since
the abortion, and has been described as "distraught . . . scared and
ashamed."
Investigation of the incident by the union has been hampered because new
employees fear retaliation and are hesitant to provide written statements.
One source alleges that the victim herself has been harassed by supervisors.
[ Washington Times]
It is reported that Harvard University will obtain human embryos from a
Boston in vitro fertilization clinic and use private funds to experiment on
human embryos, and that the American Jewish Congress considers it
"imperative" to allow public funding of embryonic stem cell research.
Responding to criticism of alleged lack of abortion training at the
University of Florida's College of Medicine, Dr. W. Patrick Duff, professor
of obstetrics and gynecology and residency program director, insisted that
sufficient training is provided. He added, "We don't require that any
resident perform an abortion if that would violate their religious or
personal moral convictions." He estimated that 80 percent of graduates
provide abortions in their private practice.
[Gainsville Sun]
Washington state will require all insurance companies to provide coverage
for all birth control beginning in September, 2001.[Link]
A journalist writing in the National Post (Canada) reports that animal-human
hybrids have been created, lived and have been permitted to develop till the
32-cell stage. He noted that such experiments come to public attention only
when applications are made for patents.
[National Post]
A separate, licensed hospital will operate on the fifth floor of
Brackenridge Hospital in Austin, Texas to supply contraceptives and other
procedures or services (other than abortion) that are contrary to Catholic
doctrine. The formation of the new facility within the existing hospital is
proposed as a response to Church directives that Catholic-run hospitals will
no longer be allowed to offer sterilizations and other contraceptive
services. Seton Healthcare Network, a Catholic organization, has operated
the hospital since 1995. Transition to the new arrangement may take two
years, during which it appears that Brackenridge will continue to provide
sterilization and contraceptives under the existing policy. An outside
contractor performs sterilizations, and contraceptive counselling is
provided by city employees.
Costs for remodelling the fifth floor, which Seton will bear, are
estimated at five million dollars. Bishop Gregory Aymond, head of the
Catholic Diocese of Austin, states that the plan is acceptable to the
Vatican, on the understanding that the facility will be owned and operated
by a different entity and that there will be no co-operation in what is done
in the "hospital within a hospital". [American-Statesman]
The Australian state of Victoria was ordered by the Federal Court last year
to provide in vitro fertilization to any woman who wished it.
Previous to the ruling, IVF was made available only to women in stable
heterosexual relationships. The Court ruled that the Sex Discrimination Act
made it unlawful to withhold medical goods and services on the grounds of
sex or marital status. The Federal Court ruling illustrates the dynamic of
expectation that drives demand for morally controversial procedures once
they have been legalized, increasing the likelihood of conflicts of
conscience among those required to provide the services. The High Court is
to hear arguments against the Federal Court decision from the Australian
Catholic Bishops' Conference. The Conference is opposed by the Women's
Electoral Lobby.
[Radio National].
Arguing that laws against assisted suicide contravene the Human Rights Act,
Dianne Pretty, a 47-year-old British woman suffering from motor neurone
disease, will ask a court in the United Kingdom to allow her husband to
assist her with suicide. She claims that existing law subjects her to
inhuman and degrading treatment. If the court rules in her favour, it is
likely that the precedent will be cited in other cases, and that health care
workers and others will eventually be expected to
assist. The Pretty case is not unlike that of Canadian Sue Rodriguez,
who, after losing a 1993 case in the Supreme Court of Canada, was killed by
lethal injection in British Columbia by an unidentified physician. The
Canadian Chief Justice, ruling in
Re: Rodriguez, stated that he was prepared to order that someone else
perform the act that would directly cause the death of Rodriguez. (See
UK Woman loses right-to-die case)
It is reported that 24 American states allow parents to sue doctors for
"wrongful life" and three permit children to sue for "wrongful birth." Such
suits are brought against doctors who have allegedly failed to warn parents
about possible congenital abnormalities, thus depriving them of the
opportunity to seek an abortion. The threat of such suits can be used to
coerce physicians who do not wish to participate in eugenic screening and
selection. [News
item] (See
Eugenic screening expected by French courts;
Supreme Court of Canada to hear 'wrongful birth' case;
No Christian gynaecologists and neonatologists in Netherlands ;
Catholics and Pro-lifers Being Forced Out of Ob/Gyn Profession;
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists requires eugenic
screening; Doctor sued for birth of Down Syndrome child)
Karen Brauer, a pharmacist who is suing K-Mart for wrongful dismissal on the
grounds that she was fired because she would not fill prescriptions for
abortifacient pills, reports that Planned Parenthood is intervening against
her in the case. She was recently interviewed on
True
North.
On August 8, 2001, Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer ruled that,
unless a higher court intervenes, feeding tubes will be removed from Terri
Schindler-Schiavo, a disabled woman who is neither terminally ill, nor in a
'persistently vegetative state'. It is reported that her parents of were not
allowed to present witnesses or expert testimony on her behalf. The ruling
appears consistent with legal precedents that define nutrition and hydration
as
treatment rather than
care, thus legalizing the process of starving and dehydrating patients
under the rubric of withdrawing, refusing or withholding treatment. The
ruling illustrates the kind of pressures that may be brought to bear on
health care workers and others, who may be asked to assist in executing such
orders.
Campaign Life Coalition, Ontario has organized a provincial
conference for Saturday, October 13, 2001 that will feature guest
speakers Wesley Smith and Julius Yankowsky. Mr. Yankowsky is a Member of the
Legislative Assembly of Alberta who has put forward a protection of
conscience
bill.
Nine of sixteen American states that require insurance plans to cover
contraceptive drugs and devices include some form of limited protection of
conscience provision for religious employers. The remaining seven - Georgia,
Indiana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont - do
not. Planned Parenthood and other organizations continue to push for
mandatory coverage, without provision for freedom of conscience.
A draft euthanasia law is to be presented in the Belgian Senate this fall.
It is not known if the bill will include protection for conscientious
objectors.
The second-largest American medical association has officially taken a
position against physician assisted suicide in a paper published in the
Annals of Internal Medicine. It suggested that more appropriate alternatives
to assisted suicide include better pain management, more aggressive
treatment of depression and increased access to hospice care. The statement
included strong support for a patient's right to refuse or halt treatment.
The fact that these major organizations have come out against physician
assisted suicide can be cited to indicate that refusal to participate in
such procedures is not an eccentric or unreasonable position. [Newsday]
An attempt to starve to death a patient who was conscious and not terminally
ill has been frustrated by the California Supreme Court. The New York Times
reported that the Court ruled "that families have no right to stop life
support for conscious patients who are not terminally ill, and who have not
left explicit instructions allowing them to do so or formally appointed
anyone to make health care decisions in the event of incapacity."
The patient had been brain-damaged after an auto accident in 1993. In
1995 his wife asked the doctors to remove his feeding tubes, but the man's
mother and sister challenged the request. Note that the court might well
have ruled in favour of the wife had he previously appointed her his agent
for making health care decisions. The case illustrates the precarious
position of health care workers who do not want to be involved with
euthanasia by withdrawal of food and fluids.
After a census disclosed that the average family in China's impoverished
Huaiji county has five or more children, family planning officials in
Guangdong ordered the county to perform 20,000 abortions and sterilizations
by the end of the year. 15,000 county employees will have their $100/month
salaries cut in half to pay for ultrasound equipment to detect unauthorized
pregnancies, and doctors have been ordered to sterilize women as soon as
they give birth. Sven Burmester, the United Nations Population Fund
representative in Beijing, praised China's family planning program. "For all
the bad press, China has achieved the impossible. The country has solved its
population problem," he said. [The
Telegraph].
United Nations agencies have been implicated in
coercive practices elsewhere, and have also
criticized freedom of conscience among health care workers.
Federal Health Minister Allan Rock was advised early this year by his deputy
minister to threaten to fine the province of New Brunswick if it continued
to refuse to pay for abortions at a private clinic run by Dr. Henry
Morgentaler. New Brunswick pays for abortions in hospital if they have been
approved by a family doctor and performed by a gynaecologist with the
assistance of an anaesthesiologist. About 600 abortions are performed
annually in New Brunswick hospitals, while the Morgantaler facility performs
abortions for fees ranging from $475 to $725.
Two points are of interest in this dispute. First: pressure has been
applied to the province despite the fact that Health Canada had
no evidence to support its claims that abortions were "medically
necessary". Second: the federal health minister has repeatedly condemned
provincial government proposals to pay fees to private clinics offering
other medical services. Given the example set by Mr. Rock and his officials
in the national government, it is not surprising to encounter others in the
state health care system who believe that health care workers may be forced
to participate in abortion.
Following a
consultation process that was criticized for allegedly excluding those
with pro-life opinions, the General Medical Council of the United Kingdom
has issued guidelines for withdrawing and withholding treatment from
patients with little chance of recovery but who are not dying. Citing
British case law, the guidelines define artificial nutrition and hydration
as forms of medical treatment that a patient or his proxy can refuse, or
that can be withdrawn by a physician in the patient's "best interests".
When patients are unable to consent, doctors are advised to seek a second
medical opinion, consult with the patient's family and take into account
advanced medical directives ('living wills'). Court approval is required
only if a patient is in a persistent vegetative state, or if a family
refuses to permit starvation and dehydration.
James Bogle, a London barrister who specialises in medical law,
criticized the guidelines.
"If the GMC guidance permits the withdrawing and withholding of tube
fluids to non-dying patients so as to cause their death then it will have
endorsed intentional killing of the non-dying."
"At present that is an illegal homicide and is largely indistinguishable,
legally, from the criminal homicides of Dr Harold Shipman, save that his
method was quicker and pain-free."
The British Medical Association, which issued
similar ethical guidance in 1999, welcomed the proposals. ( David
Derbyshire, Medical Correspondent, The Telegraph)
72 year old Rosemary Frost suffered third-degree burns over 54 percent of
her body after her nightgown caught fire when she was trying to light a
cigarette. After two weeks in intensive care, she was unable to communicate
and near death, and her family has asked doctors to stop treating her so
that she could die. Hospital lawyers responded with a petition in
Hillsborough court, seeking permission to administer emergency medical
treatment, because doctors believe that her life can be saved. It is not
clear from the report whether the proposed
treatment is
ordinary or
extraordinary, or if what is at issue is the withdrawal of food and
fluids. The failure to recognize these distinctions is a not infrequent
weakness in media reports, and obscures the reasons behind conflicts of
conscience in such situations.
Human embryos created for reproductive purposes will be available for
experimentation and destructive research if guidelines proposed by a
Japanese Cabinet panel on science and technology are finally approved later
this month. It does not appear that any thought has been given to the impact
of this policy on those who object to embryo experimentation.
July
A letter from British doctors, published in the Daily Telegraph, questioned
the legality of guidelines from the General Medical Council (GMC) on
"Withholding and Withdrawing Life-Prolonging Treatments". They also
complained that many who had applied to attend were excluded from the
consultation, while the subsequent consultation period was too short, and
poorly advertised. (
BBC coverage) (The
Daily Telegraph)
After a report suggested that too much science-teaching was value-free,
the British government is considering putting scientific ethics on the
school curriculum. The Wellcome Trust commissioned the Institute of
Education, who found that three-fifths of teachers in 300 schools thought
more time should be spent on social issues when teaching about medicine.
[The Times, 16 July] The suggestion that state schools ought to teach
presumably state-mandated 'scientific ethics' could have a significant
impact on freedom of conscience. (See
Ethical Issues)
In an address to U.S. President George Bush, Pope John Paul II said,
"Experience is already showing how a tragic coarsening of consciences
accompanies the assault on innocent human life in the womb, leading to
accommodation and acquiescence in the face of other related evils, such as
euthanasia, infanticide, and more recently, proposals for the creation for
research purposes of human embryos, destined to destruction in the process."
[White
House news release]
In an interview with the Dutch weekly magazine, Vrij Nederland, French
Health Minister, Dr. Bernard Kouchner said that during the wars in Lebanon
and Vietnam he "helped" people die with morphine injections when he believed
they were suffering too much. It is not clear that any of those 'helped' had
requested his assistance.
"Euthanasia contradicts medical ethics," said Kouchner. "Doctors exist to
protect life, not to end it. But if someone says he wants to die, society
has to take that into account."
What this might mean for those who do not want to participate in
euthanasia was not explored in the interview.
While Dr. Kouchner has no plans to introduce pro-euthanasia legislation, he
claimed that 'passive
euthanasia' occurs frequently in France. The minister incorrectly
equated withdrawal of treatment per se as euthanasia, failing to
distinguish between ordinary and extraordinary treatment, and failing to
define the term 'treatment'
itself.
Dr. Kouchner cannot believe that euthanasia contradicts medical ethics,
since he does not appear to believe that in giving lethal injections he did
anything that was unethical. [BBC
News]
The Irish High Court has refused an application by seven pro-life members of
the Irish Medical Council for a judicial review of the council's
manipulation of ethical guidelines on abortion so as to allow abortion in
certain circumstances. The doctors said the council's actions violated Irish
law.
Testimony before the All-Party Committee on the Constitution last year
indicated that most obstetricians and gynaecologists would refuse to perform
abortions for reasons of conscience, so the decision of the Medical Council
indicates the potential for increasing conflict within the medical
profession, and the likelihood of increasing pressure being brought to bear
on nurses and others who are expected to assist physicians or carry out
their instructions. [News
Item] (See
previous report)
After two years of planning, and with another year of planning and
policy development ahead, the creation of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics
Institute has been announced. The Institute will be based at St. Michael's
College at the University of Toronto. The founding director is Dr. Bill
Sullivan, a family doctor at St. Michael's hospital who holds a PhD in the
philosophical writings of Father Bernard Lonergan, a Jesuit theologian. Dr.
Sullivan has stated that the Institute will be "faithful to the
magisterium", though the Institute will not speak for all Catholic
bioethicists in Canada, nor make definitive bioethical decisions for all
Catholics in Canada. "Magisterium" is the term for the teaching office of
the Catholic hierarchy (pope and bishops in union with him) through which
members of the Catholic Church are instructed in matters of faith and
morals.
Roman Catholic bishops in Colombia have released a letter calling upon
doctors, medical practitioners and judges to practice conscientious
objection and refuse to participate in the "abominable crime of abortion."
Those who participate in procuring abortion may face excommunication. The
letter may be a response to a ruling by the Columbian Supreme Court ruled
that abortion could be allowed in cases of rape or forced artificial
insemination.
The bishops stated: "Believers can legally and conscientiously object with
validity. That means that women, doctors and even judges can excuse
themselves from participating in this type of crime, because their beliefs
do not permit it."
Those who want to clone human embryos for stem cell research have begun to
deny that the clones will be embryos. Their claims are based on the fact
that the clones will not produced by fertilization and are intended for
research, not implantation. Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), which plans
mass-production of human clones, insists that they will not be human
embryos, but human "entities". Dartmouth University professor Ronald Green
is reported to have taken the same position.
French doctors have been ordered to pay compensation to three families with
physically deformed children. The families had argued that the children
would have been aborted had doctors detected their disabilities in utero.
The order for compensation was made by Judges at the Cour de Cassation,
France's highest court of appeal. They followed the precedent set by the
Perruche case, which last year awarded damages to a mentally retarded boy
damages because he had not been aborted.
The court ordered the doctors to pay the children's parents because the
doctors did not screen the unborn babies for deformities and counsel the
parents on abortion. In its ruling, the court wrote that "a child born
handicapped may request financial compensation for prejudice resulting from
his or her handicap if the handicap is in direct causal relationship with
faults committed by the doctor in executing the contract formed with the
mother and which prohibited the mother from exercising her choice to
terminate the pregnancy."
Critics of the ruling argued that the court ruling amounts to a judicial
decision that the handicapped have no place in French society. The
Collective to Stop Discrimination Against the Disabled fears that parents
who give birth to handicapped children will be deemed "irresponsible", and
it is reported that doctors are now feeling pressured to recommend abortion
if there is any indication of the slightest disability. While not
acknowledged in news reports, the ruling is likely to have a serious impact
on physicians who object to abortion for reasons of conscience, or who have
moral or ethical objections to eugenic screening. [BBC
News] [Le
Monde] (See
Supreme Court of Canada to hear 'wrongful birth' case;
No Christian gynaecologists and neonatologists in Netherlands ;
Catholics and Pro-lifers Being Forced Out of Ob/Gyn Profession;
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists requires eugenic
screening;
Doctor sued for birth of Down Syndrome child
)
Children of God for Life, an American organization, has received reports of
discrimination from many people with religious objections to vaccinations.
Their objections frequently arise from concerns about the source of the
vaccines.
Parents writing to the organization have reported denial of religious
exemption from vaccination programmes, threats of legal action for child
abuse and expulsion of their children from school. Liberty Counsel, a group
of American lawyers, is willing to pursue civil actions against any American
state that denies or challenges religiously motivated requests for exemption
from vaccinations. Liberty Counsel attorneys are said to have been
successful in the State of New York, and are involved in a similar suit
against the State of Arkansas. A
notice to this effect, with contact information, has been posted on the
Project website.
A new French law that forces French Polynesia to publicly fund abortions
has been imposed by the French senate and constitutional council over the
objections of the Polynesian government, which had protested the law because
it was contrary to the territory's religious traditions. Experience
elsewhere suggests that institutions and individuals morally opposed to
abortion who receive public funds will be pressured to provide abortions
under threat that their funding will be cut off. [ABC]
Catholic Charities' challenge to California's mandatory prescription
contraceptive coverage statutes has been rejected by the California Court of
Appeal. The text of the judgement is available at
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/C037025.PDF
Nurse Jill Stanek is reported to have revealed that Advocate Christ
Medical Center in Oak Lawn, Illinois, uses live-birth abortion. The
procedure involves inducing premature labour and dilating the cervix to
cause premature delivery. An infant born alive in this manner is left to
die. The nature of the procedure has been confirmed by the hospital (See
A New Low in Heartlessness).
Nurse Stanek testified last year before the U.S. House Judiciary
Subcommittee on the Constitution and is to testify again on July 12, 2001,
in Washington, D.C. Her employer is reported to have formally cautioned her
a second time concerning her activism on the issue; there is a possibility
that the employer might move to dismiss her. Stanek denies the allegations
and accuses her employer to be engaging in harassment. There are other
unusual aspects to the case.
http://www.ifrl.org/newstory/912/
According to a report in The Ottawa Citizen, Barb Wahl, president of the
Ontario Nurses Association, believes that protection of conscience
legislation for health care workers "would be a good thing." The
Association's approach to conscientious objection is somewhat different from
that of the College of Nurses of Ontario, which is the disciplinary
authority. The Association maintains that it is the employer's obligation to
accommodate nurses by changing assignments or other means, while the College
places the onus on the nurse to find a substitute. College policy is the
equivalent of "mandatory referral" for abortion by physicians, which is
contrary to
the policy of the Canadian Medical Association. The College of Nurses
guidelines actually suggest that nurses may have to give up their jobs if
they are unwilling to do what they deem to be immoral. The guidelines were
cited against conscientious objectors in a
controversy in Thunder Bay, Ontario. [The
Ottawa Citizen Story] [Project
Letter to the Editor]