Protection of Conscience
Project
Media Releases: June -
December, 2004
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Protection of Conscience
Project |
CCF Responds to California Attorney General Bill
Lockyer's
Pro-Abortion Attack on Conscience
| Related Links Attack on freedom of conscience in US House of Representatives |
Thomasson: "What ever happened to a person's 'right to choose' to have a
conscience?"
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Economics Outweighs Ethical
Principles in the Pharmacy Profession
| Related Links Pamphlet- Establishment Bioethics
In Defence of Autonomy, Justice, and Accommodation |
Vancouver, B.C. On October 15th, the Vancouver Sun reported that the BC Pharmacy Association, with the support of the BC First Nations Summit and the federal Conservative party, is warning that some pharmacists in remote areas are planning to withdraw from the Non-Insured Health Benefits (NIHB) program. This means that pharmacists in BC will be allowed to opt out of having to provide services to First Nations people for purely economic reasons.
The Prince Rupert Daily News (Fri Oct 8/04 issue) reported that the First Nations Summit has promised to find pharmacists who will service First Nation people for the new reduced fee if their regular pharmacist will not. In remote and isolated communities, FNIHB has promised to courier prescriptions from other areas if local pharmacists withdraw services, reports Leanne Ritchie.
Cristina Alarcon represents BC Pharmacists for Conscience, a group of professionals who have petitioned the College of Pharmacists of BC for 4 years in a row to allow them to practice according to conscience, and not via strictly imposed College policy. She is surprised by the overwhelming support being given to pharmacists who threaten to withhold services for economic reasons, and the lack of support experienced by those who would withhold services because their own research shows that some products on their shelves are unsafe or have little data derived from proper clinical trials to prove long-term safety.
Alarcon says, “ It is very disheartening to see that the BC Pharmacy Association, who is supposed to look after the rights of pharmacists, is not at all willing to support pharmacists who may find it necessary to withhold services for ethical or moral reasons, and yet are willing to support those pharmacists who would withhold those very same services because they do not feel they are adequately remunerated.”
According to Alarcon, pharmacists need to take greater moral and ethical responsibility for their actions. “ In view of the recent Vioxx scandal, it is no longer ethically acceptable to sit on the fence and wait to be told what to do by the establishment. As the drug experts we are called to be, we must take the time to read up on original studies and reports and not just go by what the Pharmaceutical Drug Reps feed us, because after all, they are only trying to sell us their products.
For more information, contact Cristina Alarcon at 604-222-8317 in the evenings (after 8:00pm) or email cristinaalarcon365@hotmail.com |
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Government still in hot pursuit of their conscience-crushing abortion
campaign
| Related Links News Release 26 June, 2002
Problems in
An opinion survey |
Embargo: Immediate release Enquiries: John Smyth, QC (legal spokesperson) Date: 2004-10-15 Cell: 083 653 8804| Health Committees of Provincial Parliaments have been discussing the Abortion Amendment Bill this past week, but the public have been refused the opportunity to make submissions. The Government is proceeding with the liberalisation of the abortion law (final debate on the Amendment Bill scheduled for November 4th in the National Assembly) in a manner which can only lead to the conclusion that they are still in hot pursuit of their campaign to put increasing pressure on pro-life health professionals to do their abortions for them. The nurses union, DENOSA, have repeatedly said that two-thirds of their members are against abortion, and it is clear that government strategy is to bulldoze the Amendment Act through against the will of the majority of South Africans as they did in 1996, and without a clause that ensures conscientious objectors are exempt from participating. Doctors For Life International(DFL) questions the legality of the process going on in the Provinces this past week where the public and interested bodies like DFL are denied the right to make submissions on the Bill; this applies to other Bills also, such as the Traditional Healers Bill. Furthermore, certainly in the case of KZN, members of Parliament were only given a few days notice of their Health Committee briefings. The purpose of the new Bill is to make abortions more accessible but no attempt whatsoever has been made to rectify the appalling deficiencies of the present legislation where the mandatory provisions as to counselling and obtaining the patient’s informed consent are often flagrantly ignored. It was well known at the time of the initiation of these new amendments, that the purpose was to make more doctors and nurses willing to take part in abortions. For that purpose, some pro-abortion lobbies actually initiated and financed the process by requesting the hearings. In spite of the fact that its purpose is to increase the demand for abortions, nothing has been done to ensure personnel will be available to carry out the task. Hence the pressure on health professionals to take part, regardless of their consciences. DFL fears that the State will lose many of its most trusted and conscientious health workers if this pressure continues without a clear and unequivocal ‘conscience clause’ being added to the Bill as exists in other jurisdictions, such as the UK. Conscience has been called the most sacred of all property, and it is especially vital to sustain reliable and trustworthy health professionals. DFL would like to respectfully warn the government that failure to add such a clause may lead to lawsuits in the future. History shows that unpopular legislation inevitably backfires; first in the court of public opinion, and then in the law courts. The irony of trampling on individual liberties and constitutional rights under the banner of ‘choice’ will not be lost on our citizens. 30 For more
information, contact Heinrich Botes (072 219 1962) or John Smyth QC, legal
spokesperson (083 653 8804). |
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Protection
of
Conscience
Project www.consciencelaws.org News Release |
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Related Links Planned Parenthood and "Anti-Choice" Rhetoric
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ADVISORY BOARD Janet Ajzenstat, B.A.,M.A. Ph.d Associate Professor, Dept. of Political Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Dr. Shahid Athar, M.D. J. Budziszewski, Ph.d Dr. John Fleming, Dr. Henk Jochemsen, Ph.D David Novak, Lynn D. Wardle, J.D. PROJECT TEAM Michael Markwick
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30 August, 2004 For Immediate Release Planned Parenthood and "Anti-Choice" Rhetoric Planned Parenthood Alberta is recycling the accusation that physicians who object to abortion may "scare" patients with "misinformation"or "impose their moral beliefs." This smear may be unfairly applied to conscientious objectors who follow the guidelines of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA). The CMA advises physicians to inform a patient when their personal morality would influence their recommendations or practice, and to advise patients of their objections to abortion. The CPSA expects physicians to provide information to patients seeking abortion so that they can "make informed decisions on all available options for their pregnancies, including termination." On the other hand, objecting physicians can hardly be expected to present morally controversial procedures as morally uncontroversial, or in such a way as to indicate that they approve of them or are indifferent to them. Moreover, the information they reasonably believe necessary to permit the patient to make a truly "informed decision" may be more comprehensive or in other respects different from what Planned Parenthood is accustomed to provide its clients. An interest group like Planned Parenthood might well stigmatize such discussion as ‘moralizing’ and providing ‘misinformation’. Partisan polemics of this sort do not provide a basis for sound policy making. Planned Parenthood Alberta is compiling a list of what it calls "anti-choice doctors." If it is desirable to help patients find physicians who share their outlook on moral issues, it would be preferable for doctors to identify themselves, perhaps through the College of Physicians and Surgeons or professional associations. But if Planned Parenthood persists in its plan to identify "anti-choice doctors", it should include in its list the names of physicians who believe that their colleagues should be forced to provide or facilitate morally controversial procedures. [For full commentary, see Planned Parenthood and "Anti-Choice" Rhetoric] -30- |
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Catholic Bishops Call to
Action on Abortion
Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference
Media Statement
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Related Links Are State Doctors in the Western Cape willing to implement the Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Act?
Parliamentary Portfolio
No Place for
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“The Catholic Church calls on all catholic medical personnel to insist on their constitutional rights, respecting their freedom of conscience and to refuse to cooperate in the performance of abortions”, said the Bishops in their statement at the end of their assembly in Mariannhill today. The right to life is the most fundamental of all human rights on which society is based. Abortion as a direct attack on this most basic right can never be justified even by the intention of protecting or promoting any other right or value. The current parliamentary debate on Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Bill challenges us once more to uphold the sanctity of human life from conception until death, and to condemn abortion as an act gravely contrary to the law of God. We are furthermore deeply disturbed by the proposal that the new amendment bill seeks to extend to nurses the right to destroy innocent life through even more freely available abortions. We note with great sadness that 330 000 innocent human lives have been destroyed since the Abortion Act came into operation in 1997. There is no doubt that the aim of the proposed amendment is to increase the number of abortions in our country and as a Church we deplore this onslaught on the lives of the unborn. We are deeply aware of the great damage caused to women by abortion since they had already bonded as mothers with their unborn babies. The Church wishes to help them in coping with their loss and grief. The Church will continue to use its own resources to counsel, to protect and to care for unmarried mothers and other women in pregnancy crisis and situations of abuse. “How can the country possibly regenerate its moral fibre if it continues to widen and facilitate the destruction of unborn life?”, ask the Catholic Bishops.
Father Mathibela
Sebothoma |
Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on
Health
Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Bill 2003
Immediate Release
Date: 2004-08-03
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Related Links Are State Doctors in the Western Cape willing to implement the Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Act?
Catholic Bishops Call
No Place for
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Doctors for Life, represented by Dr Takalani Dube and John Smyth, QC, today made oral submissions to the Committee in Parliament at Cape Town. DFL asked the Members of Parliament to put the Amendment Bill on hold for the following reasons:
1. Because almost all abortions are now done by means of Misoprostil tablets, rather than any surgical procedure, the existing law has fallen into disrepute. No regard whatever is paid to the mandatory requirement of ensuring the mother has given ‘informed consent.’ Very often the midwife does not consult with a medical practitioner when the gestation period is over 12 weeks as required by the Act.
2. The Committee was presented with powerful evidence from women who have undergone abortions and subsequently bitterly regretted it because they were given no information about the unborn child in their wombs, what was involved in the procedure or what the psychological after-effects would be. DFL will very shortly institute a High Court action against a clinic which aborted an unborn child from a schoolgirl without giving her any information whatever as to what was involved and behind her parents’ backs.
3. The provisions in the new Bill to designate facilities ‘automatically’ will be a recipe for disaster that is bound to increase pressure on all hospital staff, particularly those who have conscientious objections to abortion. Doctors and nurses from rural clinics will initiate abortions on the assumption that facilities do qualify when often they will not because adequate staff who are willing to do abortions will not be available and therefore the facility will not be ‘accessible’ under the new Act. The pressure on all staff will become intolerable. DFL presented to the Committee the Minutes of a Theatre Staff meeting at a Gauteng hospital where the staff (both pro-life and pro-choice) were at loggerheads. Copies may be obtained from DFL.
4. In the UK and USA the current trend is very much to impose greater restrictions on abortion because of new and compelling medical evidence as to the viability of the unborn child from a much earlier age than previously thought. DFL submitted to the members of Parliament that this was certainly not the time to liberalise the South African law even more.
5. The press coverage estimating that 500 deaths occur each year due to the misuse of Misoprostil (Pretoria News 5 March 2004), coupled with the admissions by the Free State department of Health that deaths occurred as a result of the misuse of the tablets, add weight to a powerful case for delaying the new Bill and considering introducing clauses that will stop these abuses of the current law. Copies of the Free State admissions can be obtained from DFL.
For enquiries phone John Smyth, QC at 083 653 8804. Copies of the 8 page submission including appendices presented to the Parliamentary Committee are available from Shadrack or Martus at the DFL office – Tel: (031) 760 0443. Doctors for Life International represent more than 1000 medical doctors and specialists across South Africa and the globe. For more information visit www.doctorsforlifeinternational.com |
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Jan-June 2005 |
Jan-June 2004 |