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Ottawa debate and panel on assisted suicide

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We have two upcoming Ottawa events on the topics of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Panel Discussion by uOttawa Human Rights Resource and Education Centre, February 26th

Text from Centre advertisement: We are holding a panel discussion this on the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision on Assisted Suicide. We would appreciate it if you would please circulate this notice to members or employees of your organization whom you think may be interested in attending.

  • Who: Prof. Jocelyn Downie (Dalhousie University), Prof. Michelle Giroux (University of Ottawa), Prof. Carissima Mathen (University of Ottawa)
  • When: Thursday, Feb. 26 from 11:30 a.m – 1 p.m.
  • Where: University of Ottawa Law School, Fauteux Room 302
  • Lunch included. All are welcome. No registration required.
  • Co-sponsored by: Human Rights Resource and Education Centre and the CIHR Graduate Training Program in Health Law, Ethics and Policy

Free to Die? Debate at the University of Ottawa by Campus Conservatives, March 18th

  • When: March 18th, 7 pm
  • Where: Location to be announced, uOttawa campus
  • Who: Debating the ethical and legal issues of euthanasia, a debate between Matt Bufton (Libertarian) and Andre Schutten (Social Conservative).
  • More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1540335529552213

heartbeat

Leo: his mother made his father choose between them

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This is a story of love and generosity for a dark day.

When Samuel Forrest’s son Leo was born in Armenia, his wife gave him an option: the child would go to an orphanage, or they would divorce.

Samuel chose Leo.

But the beauty of the story doesn’t end there. He started a GoFundMe campaign to get him and Leo back to his native New Zealand. He hoped to raise $60,000.

Samuel Forrest

Guess how much has been given to this man and little son?  $366, 285.

Let’s do that again: $366,285.

Samuel’s words remind us just how easily a society can devalue those who are different, ill or who have disabilities:

Forrest, who’s from Auckland, New Zealand, said he was completely unaware of the hospital practices in Armenia when it came to children.

“What happens when a baby like this is born here, they will tell you that you don’t have to keep them,” he said. “My wife had already decided, so all of this was done behind my back.” …

Forrest has recently been working with disability awareness groups to share his story in the hopes that parents will become better educated on children with special needs.

“After what I’ve been through with Leo, I’m not going to sit back and watch babies be sent to orphanages,” he said. “As a child with Down syndrome, that becomes somewhat of a label. If we can get around this label, we’ll see that they’re normal. They’re a little different from us, but they’re still normal.

“They all have niches and I want to work hard to find out where Leo’s special. This little guy is great.”

Oh, Canada.

Assisted suicide decision “warps the perception of people with disabilities”

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Taylor Hyatt spoke out, quite eloquently this morning, about the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision to decriminalize assisted suicide:

On Friday a shaken Hyatt called the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling allowing doctor-assisted death both disappointing and worrisome, especially for its inclusion of “disability” among “grievous and irremediable” medical conditions that might be included in physician-assisted suicides.

“I was expecting, at the very least, a specification that assisted suicide was meant for people who were facing terminal conditions. Instead, people with disabilities were mentioned and this means that anyone who feels that they are suffering in their current condition could request help ending their life, and that includes me.”

Hyatt says she believes the ruling will change Canadian society. “This ruling warps the perception of people with disabilities. It paints it as very negative and hopeless and I would like to know why people are being invited to end their lives rather than being given resources they need to truly live and thrive.”

It’s a dark day for Canada, friends.

Blue Chair

Assisted suicide and the loss of conscience rights

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Albertos Polizogopoulos on what we can expect if the Supreme Court of Canada decriminalizes assisted suicide:

In October, the Supreme Court of Canada heard the Carter case, where parties are challenging Criminal Code prohibitions on physician assisted suicide in the hopes of decriminalizing it. If they’re successful, it will impact more than just physicians. […]

Recently however, and as a result of a discussion with a fellow religious freedom lawyer, I realized that decriminalization will impact the religious freedom and conscience rights of many others. Of course, this includes all others in the health care field such as nurses, hospital staff and those working in the fields of psychology and counselling.

Read the rest here.

Doctor

College of Physicians, please stand up for religious minorities

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*Dr. Gabel is Member of Council and Past President of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. He is the chair of the College’s policy working group which issued the draft “Professional Obligations and Human Rights” policy.

Faye Sonier

Faye Sonier

Dear Dr. Marc Gabel,

I just read this article which was published in the Catholic  Register. You were quoted in the piece. Here is an excerpt:

Catholic doctors who won’t perform abortions or provide abortion referrals should leave family medicine, says an official of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

“It may well be that you would have to think about whether you can practice family medicine as it is defined in Canada and in most of the Western countries,” said Dr. Marc Gabel, chair of the college’s policy working group reviewing “Professional Obligations and Human Rights.”

The Ontario doctor’s organization released a draft policy Dec. 11 that would require all doctors to provide referrals for abortions, morning-after pills and contraception. The revised policy is in response to evolving obligations under the Ontario Human Rights Code, Gabel said.

There have been no Ontario Human Rights Tribunal decisions against doctors for failing to refer for abortion or contraception.

Gabel said there’s plenty of room for conscientious Catholics in various medical specialties, but a moral objection to abortion and contraception will put family doctors on the wrong side of human rights legislation and current professional practice.

“Medicine is an amazingly wide profession with many, many areas to practice medicine,” he said.

Yes, medicine is “an amazingly wide profession.” Thankfully, it is also a profession which attracts an “amazingly wide” array of Canadians. Of those Canadian physicians are some who share my pro-life perspective. They may refuse to refer for abortion due to their conscience, but they may also refuse to refer due to their religious beliefs (or both – we’re working out what this means under the Charter). They may be Christian, Muslim, Jewish or atheist physicians but they have an issue with abortion or contraceptives. For them, to refer for this procedure or these drugs is to be complicit in the actions and their consequences.

I am an Ontario resident. I’m a cancer survivor. I’m a mother.  I have spent far more than my fair share of time in Ontario hospitals and clinics being treated by wonderful Ontario doctors.

Over the last few years, I’ve gone out of my way to work with pro-life physicians who share my perspective. I reject the notion that killing and dismembering unborn children is medicine, and I wanted to work with physicians who share my values regarding human life and human dignity.  Due to the “amazingly wide” practice of medicine in Ontario, I was able to find a few, and become their patient. I am so thankful for their care.

But due to your working group’s proposed new policy, I might lose my family physicians. They will choose to practice medicine in a province that respects both their skills and their rights, rather than sacrifice their conscience or their sincerely held religious beliefs.

I’m also a human rights lawyer. The College’s reasoning for stripping physicians of their conscience and religious rights is not based on law. Your working group received a number of submissions on that point, so I’ll leave you to review them with your legal counsel. The doctors seeking to exercise their freedoms have a leg to stand on. Heck, they have Canadian and Ontario human rights law on their side.

Of great concern to me is the definition of “discrimination” which you provided when interviewed:

“We’re saying that the discrimination occurs when you are not acting in the best interest of the patient,” said Gabel. “When you are not communicating effectively or respectfully about this with the patient, when you’re not managing conflicts, when you differ from the patient and when you are not respecting the patient’s dignity and ensuring their access to care and protecting their safety. That’s the issue.”

Dr. Gabel, this is not the definition of “discrimination” at law. If someone chooses to make up definitions for words, they are free to do so. (My son, for example, seems to think that “babagaba” is a verb which means “to chew on mommy’s ankle.”)

However, for a body like the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario to create a new definition of “discrimination” which will result in the stripping of legal and human rights of some of their members is shocking, and this new definition will not stand up in a court of law. I urge the College to abide by Canadian and Ontario law.

Dr. Gabel, I suspect you are well intentioned and a kind and caring psychotherapist, like so many of the wonderful doctors who have treated me over the years. But please don’t force my physicians from the province with your policy. My family depends on their expertise and professionalism. I like to see my own values reflected in the “amazingly wide” practice of medicine in Ontario. For someone like myself, a religious minority, this is very important.

The membership of your College is broad and wide enough to include some family physicians who happen to hold pro-life positions. If it is not, it should be.

Sincerely,

Faye Sonier

Post-natal abortion in Canada

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Baby in HospitalOnce we’re considering euthanasia for adults, we move to the euthanasia of babies:

Doctors would be justified to end the lives of some terminally impaired newborn babies, says a prominent Canadian bioethicist in a report that pushes the country’s euthanasia debate into provocative new territory.

Much of the discussion of physician assisted-death in Canada has centred around adult patients capable of making known how they want to end their lives.

But Udo Schuklenk, a Queen’s University philosophy professor, argues that in rare cases of severely impaired, deeply suffering newborns, actively causing death is morally acceptable, if still illegal in this country.

“The parents should be able to freely decide on what would amount to postnatal abortion…”

This is perspective that I don’t hear often enough:

In a counterpoint to Prof. Schuklenk’s article, theology professor Gilbert Meilanender of Indiana’s Valparaiso University said patients should not be subjected to aggressive treatment if it is futile, but they should also not be intentionally killed, either.

“That would be to think of ourselves … as people who are fit to exercise a kind of ultimate authority over the life of another,” wrote the former ethics advisor to U.S. President George W. Bush. “If we simply sweep such children off our doorstep every morning with euthanasia, medicine will never learn better ways to help them and others like them.”

Misguided feminism at Fredericton High School

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A demonstration over school dress codes at Fredericton High School has led to police being called in and several students facing sanctions, including suspension.

A campaign against school uniforms was launched by Fredericton Youth Feminists. According to a student involved in the project, requiring a dress code plays into the rape culture, and as one teen stated, “if a teacher finds my shorts inappropriate, they are sexualizing me.”

Susan B Anthony

Unlike many jaded women, I do think there is still a place for feminism. Some argue that all the battles have been fought and we need to move on. Women are rolling their eyes at feminists who crash events by flashing their bare breasts and screaming obscenities. If feminists are left fighting over the “right” to wear short shorts, they’d argue that clearly all the feminist battles of substance have been fought and won. I agree, but only in part.

If feminism means the fight for the right of women to be treated with respect and dignity, bring on the battle. In the last few weeks, there has been extensive news coverage of the horrors of female genital mutilation and the cruelties associated with child marriages. Little girls need more women, like passionate feminists, to fight for them when they are unable to fight for themselves.

As for wanting to fight the rape culture, feminists need to condemn porn and the porn industry with vehemence. Experts in the field are tracing the rape culture right back to pornography, with one explaining that it “sexualizes violence against women.” It’s not hard to imagine that a culture addicted to internet porn, which displays men using, hurting and raping women is changing for the worse.

If women want to assemble and work together under the umbrella of feminism, they should. Others, like me, will choose to label ourselves as human rights advocates. And others still, like those fighting for the liberation of women trapped in human sex trafficking, may choose to call themselves abolitionists.

The students who organized a rally and gave speeches could refocus their energies toward saving the lives of girls and women, and fighting for laws to protect girls their age and younger from mutilation and rape. Event planning and public speaking are incredible tools for any advocate and these young feminists can channel their passion, gifts and abilities toward real causes. Fighting for the “right” to wear short shorts is neither a serious cause, nor any type of human right.

Lastly, to the feminist students: an institution may set standards of behaviour and dress while still condemning the rape culture and teaching men to respect women. The activities are not mutually exclusive. Many employers and institutions have established dress standards and sexual harassment policies. By requiring dress in accordance with guidelines for institutional conformity, you are not being sexualized. You are being asked to adhere to a standard while you attend your school, and nothing more.

But be passionate. Learn about human rights. Develop the skills you will need if you choose to fight for women who are suffering discrimination and violence. The world needs more women who will advocate for those suffering oppression. Be that voice.

photo credit: Tony Fischer Photography via photopin cc

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