THE NECESSITY FOR CONSCIENCE RIGHTS

In the wake of Canada's Supreme Court decision to strike down the nation's laws prohibiting physician assisted suicide, I write to Canada's Prime Minister asking that conscience legislation be put in place to protect conscience rights. Below is the text of that letter dated 25 February 2015.

Mark
____________________________________

The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper,                                    

Prime Minister of Canada

House of Commons

OTTAWA, ON, K1A 0A6

Dear Prime Minister:

      

RE: PROTECTION OF HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS’ CONSCIENCE RIGHTS

I am writing this letter in the wake of the Supreme Court’s appalling decision to strike down Canada’s laws prohibiting assisted suicide. Quickly enact federal conscience legislation to protect physicians from being forced to kill suicidal patients or provide referrals. If doctor assisted killing is against their religious or moral beliefs, they must be able to refuse to participate or be complicit by providing referrals of suicidal patients to doctors willing to kill.

According to a recent National Post article, 74% of the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians’ membership stated they would not help their patients commit suicide when the act becomes legal. The Society’s President, Dr. Susan MacDonald, an associate professor of medicine and family medicine at Memorial University in St. John’s, N.L., stated:

“It’s just anathema to us, many of us. How would I ever inspire trust when people already have this terrible fear of what I do.”[1]

Enact a law to protect conscience rights for physicians, and nurses, that overrides any provincial laws or policies or Canadian Medical Association, Canadian Nurses Association or other professional association policies or directives to the contrary.

I specifically include nurses because of a number of nurses who have articulated their fears to me of being compelled to participate in assisted suicide. One prominent palliative care nurse wrote to me about the experience in other jurisdictions that allow physicians assisted suicide and said,

“Many physicians just leave orders for nurses to carry out and in this issue we must also be protected. Many great nurses lost their jobs in the initial years after abortion opened up to every woman for any reason. We must have rights of conscience to object when this act of “assisted death” is ethically, morally and spiritually intolerable.”

  

We now know that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is an inferior document that can be twisted and manipulated any direction our activist high court wishes to reflect their particular ideologies. A federal law will help bolster Fundamental Freedoms (S-2) of the Charter until the Supreme Court strikes that down too.

Please provide protection for conscience rights.[2]

Thank you for reading my letter.

I am, dear Prime Minister,

Yours sincerely, 

Mark Davis Pickup

Life and disability issues advocate

CC: 

The Hon. Peter MacKay, Minister of Justice and Attorney General for Canada.

Mike Lake, Member of Parliament, Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont.                                                               

[1] Sharon Kirkey “In wake of ruling, who does the killing?” National Post, 11 February 2015, A1.

[2] For supplementary reading see

http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/02/the-coming-of-medical-martyrdom

Wesley J. Smith, “THE COMING OF MEDICAL MARTYRDOM”, FIRST THINGS online magazine, 15 February 2015.