Quebec’s health minister has publicly stated he will discipline physicians refusing patient requests for assisted suicide, including referral to a pro-euthanasia doctor, regardless of conscientious objection.
Ahead of the December 10 activation of the province’s assisted suicide legislation, Gaetan Barrette warned doctors of the University of Montreal Health Centre – one of the largest facilities in the city – that any refusal to participate in a patient’s assisted suicide would see a doctor stripped of his or her visitation rights at the hospital.
Minister Barrette’s threat comes as supporters of assisted suicide lobby him to end funding for Quebec’s 29 palliative care hospices which have signalled their opposition to assisted suicide.
Such moves to pressure doctors and hospices have been condemned by patient support groups and medical organisations.
Speaking to Lifesite News, Larry Worthen, executive director of the Christian Dental and Medical Association of Canada stressed that the country’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteed freedom of conscience as a “fundamental freedom” and, therefore, “doctors have a fundamental right to refuse to participate in assisted suicide and euthanasia”.
Further, he said, “”the Supreme Court of Canada [which legalised assisted suicide last year], also declared no doctor can be forced to participate against their conscience in euthanasia or assisted suicide.”
Participation, Worthen said, included referral of a patient wishing to die to another doctor willing to assist.
Similarly, Dr Catherine Ferrier, chief of Living with Dignity and The Physicians Alliance Against Euthanasia criticised the threat to doctors who support palliative care over assisted suicide, pointing out that assisted suicide supporters “claim they are protecting the rights of one group while they take away the rights of another. But they have known for five years that nobody involved in palliative care wants anything to do with assisted suicide or euthanasia.”
Dr Ferrier insisted that cutting funding to hospices will only hurt patients, and charged that backers of assisted suicide “are about to severely damage, if not ruin, our palliative care network”.