Repression of Conscience in Health Care
Objectors to be Denied DiplomasDiscriminatory diplomacy?
(United Kingdom: 1999-2000)
- Triple Helix | Doctors who have a conscientious
objection to prescribing post-coital contraception or IUCDs that act
after fertilisation will no longer be able to obtain the Diploma of the
Faculty of Family Planning (DFFP) of the Royal College of Obstetricians
and Gynaecologists.
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Personal Qualms Don't Count:
Foothills Hospital Now Forces Nurses To Participate In
Genetic Terminations
(Calgary, Alberta, Canada: 1999)
- Marnie Ko | "The present mood is...chaotic, helpless,
frustrated and highly emotional," Sally wrote. "In the past weeks, I have
witnessed tears, breakdowns, illnesses, and stress such as never
before...Sick calls have been high and experienced staff nearly impossible
to recruit."
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Down the Slope to Infanticide
Nurses At Foothills Hospital Rebel Over The Horrifying
Results Of Late-Term 'Genetic Terminations'
(Calgary, Alberta, Canada: 1999)
- Marnie Ko | Genetic terminations unquestionably
constitute murder in the minds of the Foothills nurses who contacted this
magazine after hospital administrators demanded they assist with abortions.
The nurses are backed by a February 26 administrative memo obtained by this
magazine which states that for Maternity Care Centre (MCC) staff, "not
participating in terminations is not an option."
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Nurses Triumphant! Human Rights Case Ends in Settlement
After a difficult five year struggle, eight Ontario health care
professionals win the right to choose.
(Markham-Stoufville, Ontario, Canada:1993-1998)
- Sue Careless*
| . . .Staff with religious objections will not be required
to provide primary nursing care to a patient admitted for an abortion, but
could be required to provide post-abortion nursing care. They would not,
however, have to in any way participate "in the administration, monitoring
or documenting of the pregnancy termination process.". . .
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K-Mart Pharmacist Fired for Refusing to Dispense Potential Embryocide
(Cincinnati, Ohio, USA: 1996)
- Karen L. Brauer M.S. R.Ph*
| . . .I was fired from my position as a pharmacist with the KMart
Corporation for refusal to dispense Micronor, a progestin-only "minipill",
for the purpose of birth control. . .
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In-vitro physician faced ethics charges for embryo-saving stance
(USA: 1989-2008)
- Freedom2Care.org
| Brief examples that demonstrate the often subtle, sometimes flagrant
and increasingly pervasive discrimination faced by pro-life, faith-based
and conscience-driven individuals in the healthcare professions.
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Student pressured to participate in abortion
(Saskatchewan, Canada: 1999)
- Hansard | In speaking to the protection of conscience
bill he introduced in the Canadian House of Commons, Mr. Maurice Vellacott
told the House about an encounter he had had with one of his constituents, a
student who was under some duress to participate in abortion. Mr.
Vellacott advised the constituent to return to his office if she was unable
to make an alternate arrangement and opt out of observation/involvement in
an abortion. When she did not return, Mr. Vellacott assumed that she had
been accommodated.
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"Can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen"
Law professor tells senators how he deals with conscientious objectors
(Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada:1995-2000)
- Sean Murphy*
| In February, 2000, a law professor from western Canada addressed the
sub-committee. He told the Senators about an incident that occurred during a
seminar at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg. The seminar, a role
playing exercise, had been organized by a professor of medicine. The
relevant portion the testimony has been extracted from the transcript of the
sub-committee hearing.
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Ob-Gyn physician's malpractice insurer insists on lesbian insemination
(USA: 1995-1999)
- Freedom2Care.org
| Brief examples that demonstrate the often subtle, sometimes flagrant
and increasingly pervasive discrimination faced by pro-life, faith-based
and conscience-driven individuals in the healthcare professions.
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Hospital Restricts Nurses' Freedom of Conscience
(Markham-Stoufville, Ontario, Canada:1993-1998)
- David Dooley | If the province can spend millions of
dollars setting up abortion clinics, Stephens said, it can well afford to
hire nurses prepared to take part in abortions, rather than forcing others
to go against their consciences. . . . And if hospitals pride themselves on
being responsive to the community, this one should make plain how the recent
decision was made and why the nurses are under such compulsion.
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Med-School Admission Committees: Tainted by Pro-Choice Bias?
(Canada: 1995)
- Williard Johnston. M.D.*
| Recently, a worried pre-med student called me. A year ago her interview
had gone badly, partly because her pro-life views became known to her
interviewer, a woman whose pro-choice sentiments have been expressed to me
personally in the past. Back for another try, her interview somehow ended up
on the same topic.
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Objecting Nurse Fired
10 years of litigation follows dismissal
(Orange County, California, USA: June, 1994)
- Short/Kennedy | The case of nurse Karen Kelly
illustrates the kind of exhausting litigation that conscientious
objectors may encounter when pursuing wrongful dismissal claims against
large employers with 'deep pockets.' Her story is told in news reports
filed at critical points as the case proceeded.
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Anesthesiologist must anesthetize for abortion as employment condition
(USA: 1989-2008)
- Freedom2Care.org
| Brief examples that demonstrate the often subtle, sometimes flagrant
and increasingly pervasive discrimination faced by pro-life, faith-based
and conscience-driven individuals in the healthcare professions.
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Personal Experience in Switzerland in 1989
- Niklaus Waldis, MD*
| Describes his experience in being rejected for training in obstetrics
over a period of three years because he would not do abortions.
Remains a general practitioner.
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Military physician
forced to refer for abortions
(USA: ca. 1989)
- Freedom2Care.org
| Brief examples that demonstrate the often subtle, sometimes flagrant
and increasingly pervasive discrimination faced by pro-life, faith-based
and conscience-driven individuals in the healthcare professions.
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Sweeney Defends Firings
Transition house workers fired, denied benefits for 'misconduct'
(North Bay, Ontario, Canada: 1988)
- Frank M. Kennedy | The Honourable John Sweeney, Ontario Minister of
Community and Social Services, recently defended the
dismissal of three pro-life staff workers at the
Nipissing Transition House, a home for battered
women in North Bay, for refusing to go along with
the pro-abortion policy of the board. . .
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Nurses Fight for Freedom
21 out of 30 paediatric nurses resign
(Mississauga, Ontario, Canada: 1988)
- Michael Otis | Some Toronto area hospitals are forcing
nurses to perform abortions. At a press conference called on February 16 by
Nurses for Life, spokeswomen Kathleen Winarski and Helen McGee detailed the
situation of nurses who face discrimination or loss of employment for
refusing to assist with abortions. . .
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Supervisor demands nurse assist with abortion
Nurse quits at Shaughnessy Hospital
Vancouver,
B.C. Canada (1987)
- Sean Murphy | When Gina Fraser applied to work in
the operating room at Shaughnessy Hospital in Vancouver in 1983, she
made it clear that she was unwilling to assist with abortions. The
supervisor told her that other nurses were willling to do so, and she
would be accommodated. For the next four years she worked in the
operating room under the terms of this unwritten agreement.
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Hospital Aide Fired for Refusing to Clean Abortion Instruments
(Valparaiso, Indiana, USA: 1986)
- Sean Murphy*
| Elaine Tramm was fired despite the fact that Indiana had a protection of
conscience statute. It took three years to win a lawsuit against the
hospital; five months later, a jury awarded her $5,200.00 in compensatory
damages and more than $18,000.00 in punitive damages.
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"Insubordination"
Worker
fired for refusing payment for illegal abortion
(Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: 1985)
- Sean Murphy*
|
Cecilia Moore was a probationary employee of the
British Columbia welfare department when a client asked for medical coverage for an
abortion. The abortion would have been a criminal offence under the law in force at the
time, and was, in the view of the attending physician, not only unnecessary for medical
reasons but actually contra-indicated.
Since the client was ineligible, Moore refused to approve coverage. However, her supervisor ordered
her to authorize it. Moore persisted in her refusal, citing policy, the
criminal law and her own conscientious objections to abortion. Although rated as
"an
excellent worker", she was dismissed.
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Chinese health care workers and the 'one-child' policy
(China: 1983-1999)
- Senate Hearing | Since at least1991, Australia has been
faced with Chinese women who apply for refugee status because of China's
'one-child policy.' Australian authorities were
unsympathetic to these claims, and one Chinese woman, 8 1/2 months pregnant
when deported from Australia, was forced to have an abortion upon her return
to China. Senate committee hearings were conducted into the matter. A
Chinese physician testified about the operation of the 'one-child policy'
and the coercion of health care workers.
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Med School 101: You Must Perform or Refer for Abortion
(Toronto, Ontario, Canada: 1979)
- Paul Ranalli, M.D.*
| . . .His face was flaming red, the veins in his neck bulged out from
the starched collar of his shirt. He tore into me for my insolence and
presumption for writing such a thing on the exam paper. Who did I think
I was, he told me? Didn't I realize that women needed abortion,
and it was the duty of every doctor to provide service to his patients?
. . . "I could fail you for this!"
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Nurse Denied Employment, Forced to Resign
(British Columbia, Canada: 1977-1984)
- Sean Murphy*
| Bradley, an operating room
nurse with 15 years experience, was told that she
could keep her position only if she assisted in
abortions. As a result, she went to Children's
Hospital, and eventually left the nursing
profession. She has not worked in the health care
field since 1984.
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Question of Conscience
(United Kingdom: 1973)
- R. L. Walley,
FRCSC, FRCOG, MPH * | It
was quite a surprise, back in 1973, to be informed by an eminent
professor of obstetrics and gynaecology . . as a Roman Catholic specialist, that "there is no place for to
practice within the National Health Service . . ." [I]n order to stay in the
specialities in the United kingdom, I would have had to compromise a
conscientiously held abhorrence to the direct taking of human life. I refused
and as a consequence became unemployed with a wife and three children and had to
leave country, home and family in order to practise my chosen specialty in full
freedom. . .
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