[Pflienews] PharmFacts E-News Update: Canada's pro-life doctors, pharmacists go pro-active on HRC abuses of rights
PFLI PharmAid Center
pfli at pfli.org
Sat Sep 13 07:10:46 MDT 2008
*PharmFacts E-News Update -- 13 Sept 2008 AD
*
/*"The College had better be careful not to take its cues from a
problematic institution that may not last much longer," Dr. Johnston
said. "More and more people are growing more and more irate over the
abuses of the human rights commissions."*/
//
http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=2885
Canadian Doctors Warned to "Set Aside" God's Law
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lee Duigon » Bio <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#articleBio>
September 9, 2008
/If physicians have moral or religious beliefs which affect or may
affect the provision of medical services, the College advises physicians
to proceed cautiously ... [T]here will be times when it may be necessary
for physicians to set aside their personal beliefs in order to ensure
that patients or potential patients are provided with the medical
treatment or services they require .../
/[D]ecisions to restrict medical services offered, to accept individuals
as patients or to end physician-patient relationships that are based on
moral or religious beliefs may contravene the /Code/, and/or constitute
professional misconduct ... For example, a physician who is opposed to
same sex procreation for religious reasons and therefore refuses to
refer a homosexual couple for fertility treatments may be in breach of
the /Code ...
---The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons^[1]
<http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn1>
The above are excerpts from "Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights
Code," a draft proposal by the Ontario College of Physicians and
Surgeons supposedly intended to help physicians avoid running afoul of
the provincial human rights commission. But critics say the real effect
of the policy would be to force doctors to be party to actions they
believe to be sinful.
The Canadian Medical Association says physicians have a right to refuse
to participate in medical procedures---abortion, for instance---that
violate their religious principles. So does the Ontario Medical
Association, which has demanded that the College drastically amend its
draft proposal.^[2] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn2>
"There could be serious problems with what the Ontario College is
proposing," said Dr. Will Johnston, president of Canadian Physicians for
Life. "If doctors feel coerced into compromising their deepest
convictions as a result of this policy, certainly that's a problem---not
only for the integrity of the physicians, but also for the welfare of
their patients."^[3] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn3>
Just "Guidance"?
The immediate result of the controversy has been to persuade the College
to extend to September 12 its deadline for receiving feedback from
Ontario's physicians.
"All we're doing is reminding physicians that they have to comply with
the law," said Kathryn Clarke, speaking for the College. "The Human
Rights Code is the law, and it's not new. We just want to alert
physicians as to their obligations under the law.
"We're only asking physicians to do three things: to communicate
clearly, to treat patients with respect, and to provide information
about accessing medical care---services that patients have a legal right
to access. This last is the point we're getting the most feedback on."
A physician opposed to abortion, for example, would have to tell a
patient seeking an abortion where and how she could get one. It is
difficult for Christians to see how that would let them off the hook,
morally. ("I can't help you to murder your baby, but there's a clinic
just down the street where they will.")
"We're just providing guidance about the Human Rights Code," Clarke
said. "These are all services that are paid for under Canada's public
health care system. You're not obligated to provide the service, but we
are setting out expectations about the way the patient should be treated."
With feedback from physicians pouring in, she said, the College council
will study it before deciding whether to amend the document.
A Warning from Dr. Johnston
"It's just clumsiness," Dr. Johnston said. "They don't really know what
they're doing. They're reacting to predictions that the human rights
caseload in Ontario is about to skyrocket, and they want to be ready."
This summer new regulations went into effect to expand the powers of the
Ontario Human Rights Commission. "Through outreach, cooperation and
partnership the Commission aims to change systemic attitudes and build
an active human rights culture," says an explanatory statement from the
Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario.^[4]
<http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn4> Plaintiffs will be
able to take their cases directly to the Human Rights Tribunal rather
than first going through the Human Rights Commission: "[B]ut once
complaints are filed directly with the tribunal instead of the
commission," the/ Toronto Star/ reports, "the number could soar [from
about 150] to at least 2,700 annually," or more.^[5]
<http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn5>
"The College had better be careful not to take its cues from a
problematic institution that may not last much longer," Dr. Johnston
said. "More and more people are growing more and more irate over the
abuses of the human rights commissions."
The College is involved, he explained, because medicine in Canada is a
self-regulating profession, with a college of physicians in each of
Canada's thirteen provinces.
"The college in Ontario is only one of thirteen," he said. "If we can
stamp out this kind of thing in Ontario, the other provincial colleges
will take notice. This is an ongoing struggle."
OHRC Chimes In
Meanwhile, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has issued a
statement intended to help the College of Physicians draft its policy
guidelines. For the full text of this statement, see
http://www.ohrc.on.ca:80/en/resources/submissions/physur
<http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/resources/submissions/physur>.
The Commission advises the College to stress "the obligations of doctors
to ensure that they do not make professional decisions based on their
personal moral or religious beliefs in a way that has a discriminatory
impacts [/sic/] ..." Any decision by a doctor not to do a procedure, not
to accept a patient, or to end a physician-patient relationship, says
the OHRC, may only be made "for non-discriminatory reasons."
"[A] physician's refusal to provide a service or accept a patient on the
basis of a prohibited ground, such as sex or sexual orientation," says
the OHRC, "is /prima facie/ discriminatory, /even if the refusal is
based on the physician's moral or religious beliefs /..."/ / [emphasis
added]. And, "Human rights protections are to be interpreted broadly,
while defences for discrimination are interpreted narrowly"---which is
to say that under this "human rights" regime, it's very easy to be
accused and found guilty of discrimination, and very difficult to defend
oneself.
The statement concludes, "It is the Commission's position that doctors,
as providers of services that are not religious in nature, must
essentially 'check their personal views at the door' in providing
medical care."
Incredibly, the statement acknowledges that medical care in Canada is
hampered by "doctor shortages and an aging and increasingly diverse
society." Is an announced intention to persecute doctors for their
religious beliefs a good way to alleviate a doctor shortage?
Invited by Chalcedon to respond to criticism of this statement, a
spokesman for the OHRC said, "The Commissioner is not going to comment
on this matter."
The Evolution of a Tyranny
Canada's human rights commissions and tribunals have become a law unto
themselves. They are not bound by rules of evidence, precedent, or
courtroom procedure. The state pays all the plaintiffs' legal costs, but
defendants must pay their own. "Feelings" are accepted as evidence, and
the "likelihood" of damages being incurred, at some indefinite time in
the future, substitutes for real damages that can be shown to have been
incurred.
"Commissions of Human Wrongs," by journalist Nigel Hannaford, is a study
of the human rights agencies, commissioned by a Canadian think tank.^[6]
<http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn6> In addition to
recommending the abolition of all the human rights commissions and
tribunals, the study shows how they came to acquire so much power.
Laws passed by Canadian legislatures, and rulings handed down by
Canadian courts, gave them that power.
For example, the Alberta Human Rights Code, as amended in 1996, forbids
any speech or publication "likely to expose a person or class of persons
to contempt"---a breathtakingly broad and indeterminate prohibition.^[7]
<http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn7> The federal human
rights law is similar.
Human rights investigators, in a case heard by the Canadian Human Rights
Commission this spring, "admitted using fictitious names to post
provocative comments on a conservative website"---whose owner was then
prosecuted for having those comments on his website!^[8]
<http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn8>
The Canadian Human Rights Act permits "hearsay and conjecture" to be
accepted as evidence in a human rights case.^[9]
<http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn9>
Court decisions have repeatedly affirmed the commissions' arbitrary
procedures.^[10] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn10>
Even worse, the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled:
"Parliament's objective of promoting equal opportunity unhindered by
discriminatory practices, and thus of preventing the harm caused by hate
propaganda, is of sufficient importance to warrant overriding a
constitutional freedom."^[11]
<http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn11>
This, in the words of a Canadian Supreme Court justice, puts the state
in the position of "balancing the objective of eradicating
discrimination with the need to protect free expression."^[12]
<http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn12>
Giving the state the power to "balance" rights gives the state the power
to decide from case to case, from day to day, what "rights" are and who
has them.
A Canadian's right to free speech may be overridden by the right of a
gay activist not to be made to /feel/ uncomfortable by anything his
fellow citizens may write or say. A Christian doctor's right to refuse
to assist in "same sex procreation"---using high technology to grow
babies for adoption by pairs of sodomites or lesbians---may be trumped
by the /need/ felt by a same sex "couple" to have a child.
Canada's health care system pays for such procedures---and pays the
physicians too, Dr. Johnston pointed out. "He who pays the piper calls
the tune," he said. "The bureaucrats say, 'Now we're paying you, so now
we can tell you what to do.'
"It's a delightful way to practice medicine, when the patient never has
any anxiety about the cost of treatment. But the physician simply has
less freedom under a government-paid system."
In Our Own Country ...
Here in the United States, our Declaration of Independence tells us we
are "endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." The rights
of Canadians appear to be acutely vulnerable to alienation. But how
secure are ours?
The California Supreme Court on August 18 ruled that "two Christian
fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian have
neither a free speech right nor a religious exemption from the state law
that grants special rights based on sexual orientation," CitizenLink
reports.^[13] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn13>
The Ontario College of Physicians' draft proposal warns doctors that
opposition "to same sex procreation for religious reasons ... may be in
breach of the /Code/." Here in California we have the state supreme
court finding that it is in violation of the state's anti-discrimination
laws.
Our First Amendment, with its guarantees of religious liberty and
freedom of speech, has in this instance failed to protect American
doctors from a situation that in Canada, where there is no First
Amendment, has only been presented as a possibility, so far.
Meanwhile, just days after the California court ruling, the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services proposed a regulation to protect
doctors who refuse to "perform or assist in the performance" of an
abortion or any other procedure "that is contrary to [their] religious
beliefs or moral convictions." Organizations that receive federal funds
would be defunded if they tried to force doctors to perform or assist
abortions.^[14] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn14>
"Justice" without God
Christians practicing medicine in both the United States and Canada have
reason to be confused about what rights they have. In America the state
of California and the federal government seem to be on opposite sides of
the issue. Which view will prevail?
But in Canada a citizen can never be sure, from day to day, what his
rights are. The courts have given the state, in the person of the human
rights commissions, the power to "balance rights" and decide whose
rights matter most in any given set of circumstances. Protections
enjoyed by a defendant in a criminal case in a regular court do not
apply before a "human rights" tribunal---where any defendant's chance of
acquittal approaches zero.
"Attempts to define justice apart from God's law-word lead quickly to
relativism and positivism," R. J. Rushdoony writes.^[15]
<http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_edn15> Canadian law and
government, self-consciously secular to the core, have attempted to do
precisely that: and the result is confusion and uncertainty. Canadians
no longer know what they are allowed to write or say, or which opinions
will land them in front of a human rights tribunal.
In Canada the state has taken upon itself the godlike tasks of
"eradicating" hate and discrimination, "changing systemic attitudes,"
and "building an active human rights culture," all without reference to
God or His commandments. What could be more relativist than a judge or a
bureaucrat "balancing rights"?
We find offensive the Ontario College of Physicians' repeated use of the
words "personal beliefs" to describe a Christian's absolute obligation
to obey the laws of God.
A "personal belief" is just that: something on the order of believing
that eating peanut butter on a Monday is a mortal sin. We can set aside
a "personal belief" without offending God; but we cannot under any
circumstances set aside God's commandments.
The state cannot require us to assist someone in committing adultery,
any more than the Sanhedrin could require Peter and John to stop
preaching the gospel of Christ ("We ought to obey God rather than men"
[Acts 5:29]); nor can it require a doctor to perform an abortion or help
someone to obtain an abortion.
The state may attempt to do such things. The Ontario College of
Physicians seems to expect it to do just that.
Maybe Dr. Johnston is right, and growing public outrage will sweep the
human rights commissions out of existence. These commissions have been
made the Canadian far left's instrument for reshaping society through
intimidation. They have been set free from the rules that bind courts
and law enforcement agencies, made independent of the government and not
answerable to it. It's possible they have become too independent for the
legislature's liking and that Dr. Johnson's prediction will come true.
But R. J. Rushdoony's predictions have already come true. A state that
divorces itself from God's laws, that sees itself as sovereign rather
than as the servant of a sovereign God, will quickly become
unpredictable and capricious in its actions---in a word, tyrannical. And
this is what Canada's "human rights" apparatus has become: an arbitrary
little despotism operating under the cover of a democratic state.
We cover these Canadian events because, as our own state grows
increasingly godless, increasingly grandiose in its pretensions, we can
easily foresee the same kind of things happening here.
Fidelity to God's commandments, at all levels of society, will protect us.
Nothing else will.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
^[1] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref1> "Physicians
and the Ontario Human Rights Code,"
http://www.cpso.on.ca/Policies/consultation/HumanRightsDRAFT_08.pdf.
^[2] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref2> Charles
Lewis, "OMA fears intrusion into MDs' beliefs," /National Post/, August
23, 2008, http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=743272.
^[3] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref3> Canadian
Physicians for Life press release, August 15, 2008.
^[4] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref4>
http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/news/2008/20080630-ohrc-bg.asp
^[5] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref5> Tracey
Tyler, "Righting a 'nightmare' system," /Toronto Star/, June 18, 2007,
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/226494.
^[6] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref6> Nigel
Hannaford, "Commissions of Human Wrongs," Frontier Centre for Public
Policy, June 30, 2008,
http://www.fcpp.org/main/publication_detail.php?PubID=2264.
^[7] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref7> Ibid., 6.
^[8] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref8> Ibid., 7.
^[9] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref9> Ibid., 10.
^[10] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref10> Ibid., 11.
^[11] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref11> Ibid., 12.
^[12] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref12> Ibid., 17.
^[13] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref13>
"California Supreme Court Tramples Doctors' Religious Beliefs,"
CitizenLink, August 18, 2008,
http://www.citizenlink.org/CLNews/A000007996.cfm.
^[14] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref14> "Good
News: Government Works to Protect Doctors' Religious Freedoms,"
CitizenLink, August 22, 2008,
http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000008027.cfm.
^[15] <http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/print.php#_ednref15> R. J.
Rushdoony, /Sovereignty/ (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2007), 139.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
/Lee Duigon is a Christian free-lance writer and contributing editor for
the Chalcedon Report. He has been a newspaper editor and reporter and a
published novelist./
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