Resisting Ethical Aggression
2019
Medical conscience for me, but not for thee
Wesley J. Smith | The
New York Times has published an opinion column by cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar that decries the Trump administration's increased enforcement of medical conscience. But he actually promotes a one-way conscience right that favors protecting the predominate ideological views of the medical intelligentsia, while forcing dissenters to sacrifice their own religious and moral beliefs. . .
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The abortion law is about coercion and manipulation
Dr. Noreen O'Carroll | I was very struck by the phrase “the abuse of conscience” used by Pope Francis in his apology for the abuse perpetrated on minors by members of the clergy and hierarchy; he apologised not only for sexual abuse and the abuse of power but also for the abuse of conscience (Letter to the People of God, August 20, 2018). The Catholic Church is not the only institution that has failed to protect people from the abuse of conscience. The Oireachtas has questions to answer in this regard too . . .
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2015
A watchdog in need of a leash
Ontario College of Physicians manipulates consultation process
Sean Murphy
| . . .a working group at the College of Physicians and Surgeons
released a draft policy . . .for a second stage of consultation. . .
The most contentious element in POHR is a
requirement that physicians who object to a
procedure for reasons of conscience must help the
patient find a colleague who will provide it.
The consultation process is intended to provide the public and members
of the profession an opportunity to comment on policies being developed
by the College . . . Remarkably, it appears that the College is
attempting to manipulate the current consultation
process by intervening in the Discussion Forum in
order to discredit critics and defend its draft
policy. . .
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Regulator's proposal to remove pharmacists' conscience
rights is unethical, unnecessary and quite possibly illegal
Peter Saunders
|
Should pharmacists be forced to dispense drugs for what
they consider to be unethical practices – like emergency
contraception, gender reassignment, abortion and
assisted suicide?
Or should they have the right to exercise freedom of
conscience by either referring to a colleague or opting
out?
The
General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), the
independent British regulator for pharmacists, pharmacy
technicians and pharmacy premises, is proposing to
replace the current 'right to refer' with a 'duty to
dispense'. . .
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2014
Entrenching a 'duty to do wrong' in medicine
Canadian government funds project to suppress freedom of
conscience and religion
Sean Murphy
|A 25 year old woman who went to an Ottawa walk-in clinic for a birth
control prescription was told that the physician offered only Natural Family
Planning and did not prescribe or refer for contraceptives or related
services. She was given a letter explaining that his practice reflected his
"medical judgment" and "professional ethical concerns and religious values."
She obtained her prescription at another clinic about two minutes away and
posted the physician's letter on Facebook. The resulting crusade against the
physician and two like-minded colleagues spilled into mainstream media and
earned a blog posting by Professor Carolyn McLeod on
Impact Ethics. . .
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2012
"Take two aspirin and call me after the election"
Responding to Charo RA. Warning: Contraceptive Drugs May Cause Political
Headaches
Perspective, N Engl J Med. 2012 Mar 14
Sean Murphy | "Take two
aspirin and call me after the election" is the kind of advice one would
expect from former members of President Obama's transition and HHS
review teams in response to protests about the HHS birth control
mandate, so the closing words of Professor R. Alta Charo in her NEJM
Perspective column are not unexpected. . .
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2010
Plan C for Conscience
Cristina Alarcon
| I was thrilled to learn that Washington State will be creating new
rules for pharmacists who have conscientious objections to providing
services or products they find morally objectionable. The new
regulations would give plaintiffs in a Washington lawsuit -- the owners
of Ralph's Thriftway pharmacy and two pharmacists -- the right to refuse
to stock or dispense Plan B "morning after pill" based on their belief
that life is sacred from the moment of conception. . .
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'We insist: leave your conscience at the door'
Cristina Alarcon
| I recently wrote an article expressing my delight that Washington
State pharmacists will no longer be forced to dispense products or
provide services they find morally objectionable. . . . My happiness at
the Washington victory was . . . squelched by the plethora of
intolerant, and in some cases highly dogmatic, statements posted by
fellow pharmacists. . .
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Conscience Clauses: Responding to a divided ethic in health
care
Wesley J. Smith
| This is the last 18 minutes of a lecture given in Seattle, Washington.
Beginning with his observation that assisted suicide is legal in
Washington State, he explains the consequences of this for pharmacists,
and goes on to discuss the need for protection of conscience laws. The
title of this part of the lecture has been supplied by the Project.
Video
Telephone installation, lethal injection and conscientious
objection in pharmacy
Responding to Archer F. "Religious Conscience
Should not Outweigh Professional Obligations to Patients." National
Post (Holy Post BLOG),18 July, 2010.
Sean Murphy* |
. . .Mr. Archer's comparison of pharmacy services to telephone service
is also unsatisfactory because it presumes that all pharmacy services
are morally equivalent to telephone service; that, for example, no moral
or ethical questions are raised by the assertion that pharmacists are
obliged to provide abortifacients and embryocides, and may eventually be
required to provide drugs for suicide, euthanasia and executions.. . .
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2009
Professionals or automatons?
Cristina Alarcon
| Should pharmacists have the
right to act according to their consciences, or are they
prescription-filling robots? . . . A Canadian pharmacist and
bioethicist, Cristina Alarcon, explains what is at stake in her
profession. . .
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The Hijacking of Moral Conscience from Pharmacy Practice:
A Canadian Perspective
Cristina Alarcon
| . . .While Canadian pharmacy regulatory boards consider themselves to
be world leaders in promoting professionalism and pharmaceutical care in
pharmacy practice, most have failed to properly discharge their duty of
care to pharmacists who seek to live a holistic private and professional
life that is, for them, ethically coherent and unified. . .
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Even Many Doctors Want to Force Colleagues to Violate
Hippocratic Oath
Wesley J. Smith
| . . .forcing a doctor refer a patient to a provider that he or she
knows will do the abortion or assist the suicide is to force the
referring doctor to be complicit in those acts. Thus, while there
certainly should be cooperation in transferring records from the
original doctor to a replacement if a patient decides to go that route,
no dissenting physicians should not be required ethically to participate
directly or indirectly in acts that explicitly violate the Hippocratic
Oath. . .
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Forced Speech: Pushing Against Conscientious Objection
by
Medical Practitioners to Abortion in California
Wesley J. Smith
| I have been reporting that doctors and other medical professionals who
wish to hold to an orthodox Hippocratic view of medical professionalism
are going to increasingly be forced by law to either be complicit in
these actions or become podiatrists. The most blunt method of destroying
Hippocratic medicine in this manner is the new Victoria, Australia law
requiring doctors to either perform an abortion upon request, or find
another doctor for the patient who will. . .
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Pro-choicers deny doctors right to choose life
Susan Martinuk
| Abortion on demand may soon take on a whole new meaning in Alberta.
The Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons has rewritten its
guidelines covering the standard of care that doctors must provide. . .
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Conscientious Objection: Resisting Ethical Aggression in
Medicine
Responding to Cantor JD. Conscientious
Objection Gone Awry - Restoring Selfless Professionalism in Medicine.
N Eng J Med 360;15, 9 April, 2009
Sean Murphy |
Judging from the title of her article, Professor Julie D. Cantor
believes that "selfless professionalism" in medicine is being destroyed
by health care workers who will not do what they believe to be wrong.
She also implies that Americans have access to health care only because
health care workers are compelled to provide services that they find
morally repugnant . . .Such anxiety is inconsistent with the fact that
religious believers and organizations have been providing health care in
the United States for generations. . . .
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2008
Re:Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code (August, 2008)
Responses and Submissions to the College of Physicians and Surgeons
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of
Ontario is the regulatory and licensing authority for physicians and
surgeons practising in Ontario, Canada. In February, 2008, the Ontario
Human Rights Commission recommended that the exercise of freedom of
conscience by physicians be restricted. The College then drafted a
policy that demanded that Ontario physicians sacrifice their freedom of
conscience to avoid prosecution by Ontario's human rights apparatus.
See Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code.
Respect for conscience must be a social value
Margaret Somerville| An effort is also underway by pro-abortion advocates. . . to have the
United Nations declare access to abortion a universal human right.
Healthcare professionals who, despite such coercion, follow their
conscience risk a variety of legal threats. . . .[T]his state of affairs
has caused deep concern for many healthcare professionals. What has led
to this situation and what might be its wider consequences? To respond
to that question and deal with this situation, I believe we need to
understand two new realities, a political reality and a medical reality.
. .
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2007
Re:The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine
ACOG Committee on Ethics Opinion No. 385: November, 2007
In October, 2005, a letter from the President of
the ACOG to US Senators included a request that conscientious objectors
to abortion be forced by law to facilitate the procedure by referral.
Perhaps recognizing that the letter had failed to make an ethical case
for mandatory referral, the ACOG Committee on Ethics released an opinion
that purported to do so. The opinion, in conjunction with a bulletin
from the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG), poses a
significant threat to freedom of conscience for American physicians
specializing in obstetrics and gynaecology. See
The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive
MedicineHealthcare without Conscience - Unconscionable!
Gene Rudd
| The governor of Illinois has told pharmacists to check their
conscience at the door. They are not to allow their personal convictions
to alter their professional activities. Specifically, pharmacies are to
fill all legal prescriptions, even if doing so is contrary to deeply
held moral or religious beliefs of the pharmacists. . .
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2006
Re: "Abortion: Ensuring
Access"
Canadian Medical Association Journal (July, 2006)
In July, 2006, the Canadian Medical
Association Journal published a guest editorial by Sanda Rodgers of
the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, and Jocelyn Downie, of the Health Law
Institute, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. The editorial appears to
have been an attempt to bully objecting physicians who refuse to refer patients
for abortion by menacing assertions about legal and ethical obligations. See
Abortion: Ensuring Access.
2005
The Silence of Good People and Non-cooperation with Evil
Responding to: Charo RA. The
Celestial Fire of Conscience - Refusing to Deliver Medical Care
N
Eng J Med 352:24, June 16, 2005
Sean Murphy |
It is especially noteworthy that, in an essay about the exercise of
freedom of conscience by health care workers, Professor R. Alta Charo
has virtually nothing to say about freedom or conscience. "Conscience
clauses," yes: conscientious objection, to be sure: and she mentions
acts of conscience and the right of conscience. But nothing about
freedom, and, on the subject of conscience itself, the most she can
muster is, "Conscience is a tricky business." . . .
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BLOG on the Reading Down of Conscience Protection
Responding to:Charo RA. The
Celestial Fire of Conscience - Refusing to Deliver Medical Care
N
Eng J Med 352:2471-2473; 24, June 16, 2005
Iain T. Benson |
. . . This is the standard line from those who wish to frustrate the
proper accommodation of conscience and religion. Resist accommodation by
insisting on "one standard" and "non-discriminatory access" to the
"service" sought. It is our old friend "convergence pluralism" again - -
this time in medical ethics. . . "one size fits all" is the latest
attempt to force the views of some on everyone and that is, itself,
discriminatory, totalitarian and unethical itself. . .
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Silencing the Conscience of Medical Professionals
Responding to: Charo RA. The
Celestial Fire of Conscience - Refusing to Deliver Medical Care
N
Eng J Med 352:24, June 16, 2005
John Mallon |
. . . Professor R. Alta Charo. . . thinks . . . that the law should
require health care professionals to violate their consciences in
certain cases . . .What is truly breathtaking here is that she is
willing to use the very words of Gandhi and King (and elsewhere, C.S.
Lewis) to argue against precisely what they were fighting for: a just
society in which one does not have to suffer punishment for following
one's conscience. . .
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Postscript
for the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada:
Morgentaler vs. Professors Cook and Dickens
Responding to Cook RJ, Dickens BM, "In
Response". J.Obstet Gyanecol Can 2004; 26(2)112; Cook RJ,
Dickens BM, Access to emergency contraception [letter] J.Obstet
Gynaecol Can 2004; 26(8):706.
Sean Murphy | .
. . the arguments of Professors Cook and Dickens for
mandatory referral are unsupported and even contradicted by
their own legal and ethical references. Regulatory officials
with the power to enforce the views of Cook and Dickens are
unlikely to discover this in the pages of the
Journal,
since, by editorial fiat, the discussion was terminated with
the publication of their 'final word' on the subject. Here,
then, is the postscript to the discussion, supplemented by
developments in the United Kingdom and Belgium that have a
bearing on the issue. . .
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2004
Address to College Council and Pharmacists AGM, College of Pharmacists
of B.C.
Ann Nadalini | . . .I will not be forced to
dispense gravol injection, zopiclone, or ECP's, if I
feel it is not in the best interest of my client. To
do so would be to try to separate my intellect from
my ethics. To do that would create a corrupt
personality, which is untrue to my client and
myself. . .
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Service or Servitude: Reflections on Freedom of Conscience for Health Care Workers
Responding to Cantor J, Baum K., The Limits of
Conscientious Objection - May Pharmacists Refuse to Fill Prescriptions
for Emergency Contraception?
N Eng J Med 351;19, November 4, 2004
Sean Murphy |
. . .As the exercise of freedom of speech does not force others to agree
with the speaker, the exercise of freedom of conscience does not force
others to agree with an objector. Concerns about access to legal
services or products can be addressed by dialogue, prudent planning, and
the exercise of tolerance, imagination and political will. A
proportionate investment in freedom of conscience for health care
workers is surely not an unreasonable expectation. . .
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2003
Address to College Council and Pharmacists AGM, College of Pharmacists
of B.C.
Cristina Alarcon
| . . .Since the inauguration
of the new Code of Ethics in 1997, it has been insinuated that pharmacists
are incapable of treating a client with due sensitivity and respect, while
at the same time having the courage, integrity, and uprightness to act
according to one's own convictions. . .
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2002
Standing up for your beliefs
Cristina Alarcon
| . . .
For the past 3 years I have been
challenging our Pharmacy Licensing Body's Code of Ethics, which basically
asks pharmacists to violate their conscience, to violate their deeply held
belief that life is valuable from the moment of conception. . .
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2001
Conscientious Objectors: Canaries in the Ethical Mineshaft
Maria Bizecki
| . . .Freedom of conscience is an inalienable human right owed to
everyone. Protection of conscience laws resist the development of a
two-tier system of civil rights within health care professions, one tier
being those who prescribe to a universal, unchangeable ethic, and the
other tier being those who live by a relativistic, changing "majority
opinion" ethic. . .
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Customer Isn't Always Right on Issues of Conscience
Susan Martinuk
|
. . . let's not kid ourselves in saying that
conscience issues are limited to the abortion debate. How we legislate
matters of conscience now could ultimately (and intentionally) pave the
road to drone-like response to customer-driven requests for chemicals
and technologies that are highly controversial, deadly and/or have more
to do with scientific and social experimentation than legitimate health
care. . .
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2000
In Defence of the New Heretics: A Response to Frank Archer
Responding to Archer F. Emergency
Contraceptives and Professional Ethics.
Canadian Pharmaceutical
Journal, May 2000, Vol. 133, No. 4, p. 22-26
Sean Murphy |
Before taking action that they may later regret, those who would coerce
or discriminate against conscientious objectors, or drive them from the
practice of pharmacy, would do well to revisit Frank Archer's critical
review . . . Although many pharmacists have accepted the review as a
definitive ethical statement, it is insufficient warrant for repression
of freedom of conscience within the profession. . .
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