Do it anyway

More and more Canadian workers are being compelled to violate their own beliefs

Canada, 2001

 . . . a growing number of Canadian workers are being discriminated against on conscience-related issues, and the institutions that should be protecting them are turning a blind eye to their plight. As is becoming increasingly apparent, the double standard seems to be entirely political.

Two of the most commonly heard expressions uttered in the name of modern egalitarian society are "workers' rights" and "freedom of choice." Let an employer order a non-Christian to put up Christmas decorations, and it will not be long before news-hungry media and human-rights enforcers show up in the employee's defence (as happened in B.C. not long ago). However, a growing number of Canadian workers are being discriminated against on conscience-related issues, and the institutions that should be protecting them are turning a blind eye to their plight. As is becoming increasingly apparent, the double standard seems to be entirely political.

The issue involves controversial and politically correct practices that only a generation or two ago were illegal or unheard of. Today, not only are they legal (and in some cases, protected from criticism by anti-free-speech laws), but their administration is being made mandatory by employers, professional organizations, government bodies and the like. Professions and practices include: doctors and nurses (abortion and euthanasia); medical researchers (reproductive technologies and bioengineering); pharmacists (dispensing the morning-after pill and other abortifacients); social workers and school counsellors (abortion referral); printers and publishers (the printing of homosexual-rights material); teachers (liberal sex education and morals instruction).

The problem is acute in other countries too. "It's not sufficient anymore that we tolerate the existence of activities that we may find contrary to the dignity of the human person or the common good," asserts Teresa Collette, a professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston. "Now, we are forced to co-operate with them. It is a deeply disturbing pattern." She calls the phenomenon "the coercion of conscience."

Recent examples in Canada include: an edict from Canada Safeway to its in-store pharmacists ordering them to dispense the morning-after pill or, failing that, to refer the customer to a pharmacist who will; and the Ontario human rights commission's fining of printer Scott Brockie for refusing to print gay propaganda. Dr. Robert Walley, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Memorial University in St. John's, recently pointed out that doctors with pro-life views are being driven out of the field. As a result, "All that can and will be offered to mothers in distress is the termination of pregnancy," he said.

The problem has grown so acute that a non-denominational, non-profit organization has been formed to lobby governments to pass laws protecting conscientious objectors. Sean Murphy of Powell River, B.C., the administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project, says the pressure on professionals is often subtle. In the case of student nurses, for example, "If you are being evaluated, there are so many different ways they can find fault with you [without specifically drumming you out for being pro-life]," he says. "If they are looking for ways to get rid of you, they can find it."

The organization maintains a Web site (www.consciencelaws.org) that tracks the issue worldwide. Last month in California, for example, the state's Court of Appeal ruled that institutions run by the Catholic Church must pay for the prescription contraception devices of their employees, even though the use of such devices are against church law. As well, the president of the Ontario Nurses Association, Barb Wahl, urged the passage of protection-of-conscience legislation in that province. The College of Nurses of Ontario's policy places the onus on nurses themselves to find a replacement if they object to participating in a procedure such as abortion.

Canadian Alliance MP Maurice Vellacott is currently attempting to stickhandle a protection-of-conscience law through the House of Commons, but has met a variety of roadblocks, as did several previous efforts by other members of Parliament and senators. That suggests to him that the federal Liberals are simply not interested in real freedom of choice. The Saskatoon politician points out that some human rights commissions have eventually come to the aid of workers forced from their jobs by edicts that went against their conscience (such as the case of Cecilia Moore, a B.C. welfare worker who refused to authorize funding for a medically unnecessary abortion). However, such rulings are not only piecemeal, they are also time-consuming and expensive. "That's why it's not fine for the federal government to say, 'We'll deal with it provincially or through human rights.'"

"In the end," Mr. Vellacott says, "it's not a matter of Christian versus non-Christian. It's a simple, straightforward kind of thing. It's a respect for the conscience rights or qualms, and providing proper safeguards for that."