28 September, 2002
International conference-Rome
MaterCare International will hold its second international workshop of Catholic obstetricians and gynecologists in Rome, from October 23 to 27. The conference has been organized along with the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC). One of the primary goals of the meeting will be to address how MCI can function in the face of strong bias among international agencies against physicians who refuse to perform abortions for reasons of conscience.
27 September, 2002
Guernsey to
investigate legalizing euthanasia
Members of the House of Deliberation of Guernsey, a Channel Island, has
voted to investigate the legalization of voluntary euthanasia, an action
that indicates that they are in favour of changing the law. Guernsey
is not part of the United Kingdom. It is subject directly to the
British sovereign, and is not subject to laws passed by the British
Parliament unless the laws specifically include such a provision. The
Privy Council must approve Guernsey's statutes.
25 September, 2002
US
House of Representatives passes freedom of conscience bill
By a vote of 229 to 189, the US House of representatives has passed the
Abortion
Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 4691). The bill will allow
health providers and insurers who object to abortion for reasons of
conscience to refuse to perform, pay for, counsel or refer patients for
abortion services. It must pass the US Senate in order to become law.
24 September, 2002
US House of Representatives to vote on freedom of conscience bill
On Wednesday, September 25, the U.S. House of Representatives will
vote on the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (H.R. 4691). See the
action notice for further information.
Eugenic screening criticized
A deaf couple in Victoria, Australia, will be allowed to conceive embryos by
in vitro fertilization and have them screened using pre-implantation genetic
diagnosis to identify embryos that might carry a gene for deafness.
The couple wishes to avoid having a deaf child. An Australian ethicist described the decision as
"horrible on a number of levels".
23 September, 2002
Belgium legalizes euthanasia
Belgium has legalized euthanasia for terminally-ill patients who request it.
A permanent committee has been established to monitor the operation of the
new law. Opinion polls last year found that 72 percent of respondents
supported the law under certain conditions.
Push for
euthanasia continues in United Kingdom
A petition containing 50,000 names calling for legalization of
assisted suicide/euthanasia has been presented at the Prime Minister's
official residence at No.10 Downing Street by the widower of Diane Pretty, a
motor-neurone disease sufferer whose legal suit seeking legalization of
assisted suicide was dismissed.
Destructive embryo research approved in California
Governor Gray Davis of California has signed legislation that allows the use
of state funds for destructive embryo research programmes and requires IVF
fertility clinics to inform clients about the option of donating their spare
embryos to research. Davis hopes to see California become a world leader in
the field. Such developments signal problems for researchers and
health care workers who have moral objections to such research.
19 September, 2002
Euthanasia bill introduced
Green Party member Robin Chapple has introduced a bill to legalize
euthanasia in West Australia. The bill is unlikely to come up for
debate before next year.
16 September, 2002
New guidelines for terminal
sedation
Laura Hawryluck, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of
Toronto, has circulated new
guidelines to
Canadian hospitals that are intended to make clearer the distinction between
'terminal sedation' and euthanasia or assisted suicide. Terminal
sedation would be defined as palliative care if the doctor's intent to
relieve pain were clearly documented, so that it could be easily understood
by families and identified by coroners and other authorities reviewing a
case. The guidelines make the customary statement that if drugs are
necessary to relieve pain and suffering, they may be administered even if
they may hasten death. It may be two to three years before some form
of the guidelines are formally adopted as 'standard of care' statements by
medical colleges and authorities.
The National Post (Canada) news report stated as a fact - without attribution - that "close to 300 Canadians die in agony" every day. It also referred to the case of Dr. Nancy Morrison, a Halifax physician charged for first-degree murder, asserting that she administered drugs to 'hasten the demise' of a patient who was not responding to painkillers. In fact, she administered potassium chloride. This is not a pain-relieving medication, but a chemical that used for killing. [See CMAJ Commentary] The news report's reference to her case hardly contributes to the clarity that the guidelines themselves are intended to provide.
Dr. Margaret Somerville, director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law in Montreal, takes the position that patients should have a legal right to adequate pain relief, but would like to see parts of the document reworded to ensure that it cannot be used as a springboard for euthanasia. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has expressed its support for the guidelines.
13 September, 2002
Canadian agency accused of discriminating against conscientious objectors
The head of MaterCare International (MCI), a group of Catholic obstetricians
and gynecologists dedicated to the care of women in the developing world,
charges that the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has
refused to fund MCI's new birth trauma center in the African country of
Ghana because MCI does not perform abortions. [See
story]
12 September, 2002
Routine
eugenic testing refused at fertility clinic
The Bourn Hall fertility clinic in Cambridgeshire is refusing to offer
routine pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) on embryos babies conceived
through in vitro fertilization. Such testing is increasingly
demanded in order to identify genetic anomalies, such as Down's syndrome, so
that the embryos can be destroyed or an abortion performed. Health
care workers who object to eugenic testing for moral reasons are frequently
subjected to enormous pressures to provide them, including the threat of
'wrongful birth' and 'wrongful life lawsuits'. [Cambridge Newspapers]
10 September, 2002
Abnormalities plague clones
Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch, professor of biology at the Whitehead Institute for
Biomedical Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has
found that up to 4% of the genes in a clone's placenta appear to be
abnormal. Jaenisch believes that all clones have genetic
abnormalities, and that those that survive do so only because their
abnormalities are less severe. It is suggested that this may present a
biological barrier to cloning. If the difficulties do not prove
insurmountable, they may slow the push for human cloning and allow time for
reflection about the impact that artificial reproductive technologies may
have on conscientious objectors.
9 September, 2002
Refusal of hospitals to perform euthanasia considered 'problematic'
The 14th Conference of the World Federation of the Right to Die Societies
met from 5 to 8 September, 2002, in Brussels. Speakers advocated
legalization of euthanasia, as well as expansion of existing laws that
permit it. The former minister of Health of the Netherlands suggested
consideration of the situation of "people who are not ill, but
have lost the meaning for life." Pieter Admiraal of the Netherlands
asserted that there is only a "semantic difference" between terminal
sedation and euthanasia. Of particular note were comments to the
effect that the refusal of a group of hospitals in Belgium to perform
euthanasia was "problematic". Reports from the United Kingdom and
France indicated a continuing public interest in legalizing euthanasia.
All of this indicates that health care workers who object to euthanasia and
assisted suicide are likely to face increasing pressure to participate.
5 September, 2002
Bishops protest UN,
international pressure
The Roman Catholic bishops of 25 Latin American countries have warned that
the United Nations, the European Union and international non-governmental
organizations are pressuring their countries to legalize abortion and
legislate against family life. The statement is a reminder of the need
to ensure that health care workers in developing countries are not deprived
of freedom of conscience by policies or laws instituted in response to
international pressures.
Irish physicians'
group favours abortion
The Irish group Doctors for Choice, which represents 100 Irish physicians
who are in favour of abortion, have asked Ireland's Medical Council to allow
them to refer women for abortions, and to stop regarding abortion as
professional misconduct.
Recovered doctor sues
hospital
Dr Fiona Smith, a Scots general practitioner, is suing the Dundee Royal
Infirmary (Tayside Universities Hospital Trust), alleging that medical staff
advised her family that she was in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) and
had suggested that food and fluids be withdrawn to "let nature take its
course." The hospital maintains that a diagnosis of PVS had not been
made, and that any talk of withdrawing nourishment and hydration was simply
intended to prepare the family for making difficult decisions. Dr.
Smith emerged from the coma after she was moved to St Mary's Hospital
in Lanark, run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.
Whatever the legal merits of the case, it indicates how health care workers
attending such patients may find themselves in conflicts of conscience
should their moral or medical judgement differ from that of the team or
instititution. This is particularly so when a patient is to be starved
and dehydrated by withdrawal of assisted nutrition and hydration.
31 August, 2002
Switzerland reported to be forcing Catholic hospitals to provide abortions
An article in The Medical Post (July 16,2002) states that the new abortion
law in Switzerland will require Catholic hospitals to provide abortions.
22 August, 2002
Abortion
legalized, conscience protection reduced
The legislative assembly of Australia's Capital Territory (ACT) has formally
legalized abortion, the first state in Australia to do so. The
bill to amend the
Medical Practitioners Act included a clause that is intended to
prevent conscientious objectors from being forced to participate in
abortions. However, the assembly also repealed the Health Regulation
)Maternal Health Information) Act, which ensured that health care workers
could not be compelled to counsel, advise or refer for abortion. The
net result is a reduction in the legal protection available for
conscientious objectors.
20 August, 2002
Refusing life-sustaining
treatment
The United Kingdom's General Medical Council has prepared new guidelines
that affirm the right of patients to refuse life-sustaining treatment and
care; health care workers must respect the refusal.
13 August, 2002
Washington State
suppresses religious freedom
Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire has ruled that employers
cannot refuse to provide birth-control pills and other prescription
contraceptives for moral or religious reasons. The ruling followed an
attempt by Catholic-operated Sacred Heart Hospital to assert a religious
objection to paying for contraceptive coverage for employees.
Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler claimed that he recognized a right to
conscientious objection, but immediately contradicted himself by asserting
that conscientious objection cannot stand in the way "of a woman's right to
this vital and legal coverage." According to the news report,
Washington is the 17th state to require state-regulated insurance plans with
comprehensive drug policies to provide contraceptives, including
birth-control pills, intrauterine devices, diaphragms, implants and
injectable contraceptives. These continuing attacks on the exercise of
religious freedom have been fuelled by a federal Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission ruling that excluding birth-control coverage is
discriminatory, and a similar ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik in
Seattle a year ago. [Seattle
Post Intelligencer]
12 August, 2002
Compulsory abortion
training in California
A bill proposed in California would require all accredited medical
schools to teach abortion to ob/gyn residents. The bill was passed in
the state assembly in June and is to be debated in August in the state
senate. While doctors or schools would be able to opt out
for moral or religious reasons, it would require the objecting medical
schools to see that residents could get the instruction elsewhere.
There are 22 accredited ob/gyn residency programmes in the state, but the
news report did not indicate whether or not any of these programmes are in
institutions that would find such referral objectionable. The
Mercury News
9 August, 2002
Muslim
leaders condemn mass distribution of birth control
Banding Drammeh, president of the Supreme Islamic Council in Gambia,
denounced indiscriminate distribution of birth control devices to youngsters
and unmarried couples as "completely un-Islamic or irreligious". This
illustrates the potential for conflict with local health care workers whose
cultural, moral and religious traditions conflict with the anti-population
agenda of international agencies and developed nations.
8 August, 2002
Nurse charged in South Africa
The Mpumalanga health department announced that a nurse from the Philadelphia hospital has been formally
charged with gross violation of patients' rights. The nurse is to
appear at a disciplinary hearing on 14 August. The charge
resulted from the broadcast of secretly recorded video footage in June. [See
Controversy erupts in South Africa] Among other things, the tapes
showed that patients had to remove the foetuses from their bodies
themselves and put them in waste bins because the nurses did not want to
touch them. It is possible that more nurses will be charged. The
situation appears to have arisen at least in part because the government
failed to take into account the widespread opposition to abortion among
health care workers. See the
letters from Dr. Harvey Ward of Cape Town, and the text of a
survey he conducted in the Western Cape in 1997. Other
relevant background information is found in the article
No Place for Abortion in African
Traditional Life - Some Reflections .
7 August, 2002
Aborted foetuses used in
research
A news report in Australia states that Australian scientists have been
using tissue from aborted foetuses in research for 20 years. Professor
Bernie Tuck of the Diabetes Transplant Unit at Sydney's Prince of Wales
hospital, interviewed for the report, acknowledged that some people
initially experience nightmares after handling the tissue, but said that the effects
wore off over time. He stated that if a researcher in the group did
not wish to use foetal tissue "we would not put them on that particular
programme." [The
World Today]
Meanwhile, ES Cell International of Melbourne, Australia, which now exports embryonic stem cell tissue cultured on tissue from mouse foetuses, plans to use tissue from aborted foetuses in the commercial production of embryonic stem cells. Exports may begin next year. Chief Executive Robert Klupacs hopes to develop a way to produce billions of stem cells in fermentation tanks. [Herald Sun]
The Prime Minister's office has stated that proposed Australian legislation to legalize destructive embryonic stem cell research would neither prevent nor facilitate the use of aborted foetuses. [The Mercury]
6 August, 2002
British peer
claims abortion justifies euthanasia
Baroness Warnock, whose report led to the legal regulation of IVF and embryo
experimentation in the UK, has asserted that euthanasia should be permitted
and that the present law against it is irrational. Writing in Counsel,
a professional journal for barristers in England and Wales, she argued that
it is not reasonable to permit the abortion of handicapped infants while
denying euthanasia to someone who, "unlike the foetus, is able to make her own
judgement that her life is intolerable." The article
demonstrates that pressure for the legalization of euthanasia and assisted
suicide is unlikely to diminish. Once legalized, pressure to
participate will almost certainly be increasingly applied to health care
workers, just as pressure is now too often applied to force them to
participate in abortion or other morally controversial procedures.
1 August, 2002
Medical experimentation on incapacitated
The
Alliance for Human Research Protection urges Californians to oppose bill
AB2328,
which would allow surrogates to consent to medical experiments upon
incapacitated persons. Health care workers and institutions opposed to
such experimentation may find themselves in a difficult position if the law
is passed without protection for them.
30 July, 2002
Senators
try to force contraceptive & abortifacient coverage
American Senators Harry Reid (Nevada Republican) and Olympia Snowe (Maine Republican)
are reported to be planning to attach a "contraceptive mandate" to a prescription drug bill recently passed by the House
of Representatives. This would force bodies covered by prescription drug insurance to
include coverage for contraceptives and abortifacient drugs. [News
link]
29 July, 2002
UK court rejects
claims re: contraceptive pill
An English High Court judge accepted arguments that there is no evidence
linking third generation contraceptive pills to increased risk of blood
clots, and has dismissed a test case brought by 100 women against the pills'
manufacturers.
Report
predicts abortionist depression
A report commissioned by the National Health Service Board of Glasgow,
Scotland, and prepared by the Family Planning Association, which supports
abortion, states that doctors whose only duty is to perform abortions would
become depressed. The finding surprised the honorary secretary
of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, but would not
surprise physicians who object to abortion for reasons of conscience.
[Sunday Herald]
23 July, 2002
Malta rejects abortion as condition for membership in European Union
Reacting to the European Parliament's wish that abortion and the morning
after pill be made freely available in all member countries, and that sex
education be provided from "early in life", Malta has asserted that the
European Union is incompetent to legislate on domestic issues.
Malta's Permanent Delegate to the EU, Ambassador Victor Camilleri, stated
that abortion will continue to be illegal in Malta. [Times
of Malta] [Previous
report]
22 July, 2002
German women
increasing use of abortifacient drug
Mifepristone (mifegyne) use in Germany increased 21% in the first three
months of 2002, according to the German federal statistics institute
Destatis. Conscientious objectors may encounter problems when women
come to hospitals expecting physicians to complete abortions that they
initiated with the drug.
18 July, 2002
Singapore
promises freedom of conscience in embryo research
Tony Tan, Singapore's deputy prime minister, has promised that conscientious
objectors will not be forced to participate in embryonic stem cell research.
His comment followed news that Singapore will authorize human cloning for
research purposes on condition that cloned embryos are killed after 14 days.
Similar guarantees have not been forthcoming from other countries
contemplating legal regulation of artificial reproductive technologies.
18 July, 2002
Underground assisted suicide
movement
Russel Ogden, a Vancouver criminologist, has recently asserted that an
underground network exists to help terminally ill people commit suicide.
Ogden's 1994 Master of Arts thesis Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide in
Persons with AIDS or HIV led him to argue that euthanasia and assisted
suicide should be legalized because people "are dying in conditions
akin to those of a backstreet abortion."
July 11, 2002
American Civil Liberties Union opposes freedom of conscience
The U.S. House of Representatives heard testimony about a new protection of
conscience bill that would prevent private and
religious hospitals and other medical facilities from being forced to
provide abortions. News reports have described the measure as a
"pro-life" bill rather than a "human rights" bill; the appellation is likely
to generate opposition from some parties, including the American Civil
Liberties Union. [Audio
recording of hearing]
8 July, 2002
Abortifacient
drug to be more widely available in UK
Mifepristone (often called RU-486) is to be made available free to girls
and women by the British National Health Services. The drug is used to
chemically induce abortions. [BBC News online, Daily Telegraph]
While this might seem to be one way of alleviating pressures on
conscientious objectors, it creates two new complications. First: it
may place demands on pharmacists or others who may not previously have been
involved with abortions. Second: women who take the drug may arrive on
hospital emergency wards with complications that may include incomplete
abortions. In cases in which there is a chance to save the baby,
health care workers who object to abortion may find themselves in conflict
with women who demand that the objectors complete what they or other
physicians have begun. Ironically, this problem was one of the reasons
given for legalizing abortion.
6
July, 2002
European Union Parliament demands all countries provide abortion
The European Parliament has accepted a report by Anne Van Lancker, a Socialist member of the EU Committee on
Women's Rights and Equal Opportunity. The report demands that abortion
and the morning after pill be made freely available in all member countries,
and that sex education be provided from "early in life". The report
makes no mention of parental authority in the education and treatment of
their children, and is an attack on the sovereignty of member nations like
Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, which place restrictions on abortion.
The adoption of the report might also be used to blackmail nations that wish
to join the European Union.
5 July, 2002
No change foreseen in
Dutch euthanasia law
Contrary to earlier speculation, the new Dutch government will
review the euthanasia law, but does not appear to be interested in revoking
or restricting it. [News]
British
Medical Association rejects assisted suicide
Despite pressures arising from the case of Dianne Pretty, whose campaign
for assisted suicide took her to the European Court of Human Rights, the
annual conference of the British Medical Association rejected changes to its
policy against the practice. [The Western Mail]
3 July, 2002
Woman charged for two assisted suicides
A 71 year old woman of Langford, British Columbia, Canada, has been charged
for assisting in the suicides of two women, one of them a former nun.
Predictably, the news has generated calls legalization of assisted suicide.
Such a change would significantly impact conscientious objectors within
health care professions, but this problem is being ignored. [Globe
and Mail;
Victoria Times Colonist]
2 July, 2002
Changes of mind frequent after requests for assisted suicide
Nearly 90% of those who ask for assisted suicide later change their
mind, according to a recent American
study
of Oregon's Death With Dignity Act.