Canada

Medical conscience is under sustained assault as doctors are being threatened with societal punishment or professional discipline for refusing to provide controversial but legal interventions such as abortion, euthanasia, and gender transition against their religious or moral beliefs. Now, a British Columbia doctor has been fined $28,100 for refusing to administer puberty blockers to a child based on his religious and moral objections. From the CBC story:

The decision describes Child Q, the 14-year-old at the centre at the decision, as a “brave, sensitive, kind transgender girl.”

It says in late 2020, she came out as transgender and struggled with her mental health as she entered puberty. Ajaero referred her to the B.C. Gender Clinic, where an endocrinologist prescribed Lupron, a medication that pauses puberty.

According to the decision, Child Q describes the day she started the medication as “one of the best days of my life.”

Lupron needs to be injected every three to four weeks. It can be injected at home, but according to the decision, Child Q and her family preferred to have it done by a doctor.

Her first appointment to get an injection at her family doctor’s was March 5.

The decision said when Ajaero learned that the shot was Lupron, he told Child Q’s mother he would not be administering it.

“He explained this was for religious and cultural reasons, and he hoped that was OK. Mother Q said it was not OK.”

Ajaero’s charting notes from the appointment said: “I noticed that the injection is for gender re-assignment as patient is already in the waiting room with [her] mother. I called mother into the room and explained to her that I would not be able to give the injection. Based on my religious belief and cultural background.”

Euthanasia has become a way of life in Canada (he wrote ironically). More than 100,000 people have been killed by doctors and nurse practitioners. At least one hospice lost funding for refusing to kill patients. Doctors with religious and moral objections were told by Ontario’s highest court to either kill qualified patients wanting to die, procure a doctor who will (“effective referral”), or get out of medicine. Euthanasia has been described in the media as a splendid source of organs. And there are horror stories aplenty. Here’s the latest. If the reporting is accurate, an elderly woman with stomach cancer was euthanized after being coaxed by medical personnel and while mentally incapable. From the Daily Mail story: Two days before Read More ›

The New York Times published an unbelievably puffy piece about a new assisted-suicide clinic starting in New York as legalization kicks in, describing it oh, so objectively as “a start-up for better deaths” — complete with Buddhist chanting. Good grief.

But the saccharine story raises an important issue discussed too little in the debate over assisted suicide. Legalization creates acute financial conflicts of interest that have the potential to push suicidal people toward death.

For socialized systems and government funded health care, killing instead of caring for expensive patients can save a lot of money over time, particularly when the terminal-illness limitation is lifted. Indeed, some advocates argue that saving money is a big part of the point. The Canadian media has even celebrated that potential.

Many Western countries and jurisdictions are legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide. That opens up a problem for the death pushers. Since states aren’t going to get into the wet work of the actual killing, medical professionals and caregivers are going to be conscripted to do the deadly deeds — even if that means violating their religious beliefs and moral consciences.

Instead of resisting this rank authoritarianism, the medical and bioethics establishments are increasingly going along. This proposed coercion includes requiring doctors’ participation in suicides when patients starve and dehydrate themselves to death — known as VSED for “voluntary stop eating and drinking.”

As I wrote a few weeks ago here, the British Medical Association just so opined. And now, following closely in that guidance’s wake, a major article in the Journal of Health & Biomedical Law argues similarly — using dementia patients as the prime example — that doctors have to both inform patients about their right to commit suicide by VSED and ease the process by providing palliative care against the agony that killing oneself in that manner causes.

I recently wrote critically about a Quebec town that granted “rights to trees.” These include the rights “to life, to natural growth, to integrity, and to regeneration.” The new law has gotten a lot of media attention. Now, the New York Times has entered the fray, publishing a relatively objective story about the resolution and the nature rights movement’s history, with only one critic quoted — yours truly, from my NRO article (I was not interviewed). There is more to say about this than I included in my original post. So, let’s dig a little into the Times’ story: The small town of Terrasse-Vaudreuil, Quebec, was carved out of the forest about 75 years ago. But until recently, the trees Read More ›

In Quebec, a small town has granted “rights” to trees. From the CBC story: A small town west of Montreal has decided to officially recognize trees as living beings with rights of their own, in what an environmental organization describes as a first in Quebec and Canada. A resolution adopted by Terrasse-Vaudreuil city council on June 9 declares that trees are worthy of protection, “including the right to life, to natural growth, to integrity and to regeneration.” Does a “right to life” mean they can’t be cut down? Does the “right to natural growth” mean they can’t be trimmed or cleared for fire safety? Does the “right to regeneration” mean that saplings must be allowed to grow in place and Read More ›

Canada has gone hog wild for euthanasia. But the pro-death tide may — may — be beginning to turn. The province of Alberta just passed a bill that significantly restricts eligibility for euthanasia (medical aid in dying, or MAID), soon to be signed into binding law. The biggest change in Bill 18 ends the eligibility of non-terminally-ill patients to be MAIDed (known as Track 2). Among the provisions of Bill 18 (“Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act”), as summarized by the government: Eligibility in Alberta to individuals 18 and over with capacity to make their own health care decision whose natural death has been determined by a physician or nurse practitioner as being reasonably foreseeable, also known as Read More ›

Assisted suicide is not discussed much at the federal level. But at a recent Senate committee hearing, Senator James Lankford (R., Okla.) asked HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about his thoughts on assisted suicide. Kennedy was unequivocal (starting at minute 3:30): Lankford: I want to switch to an issue we have not had a lot of time to talk about and that is assisted suicide. We now have three states, California, Colorado, and Vermont that disability groups are filing against some of the assisted suicide laws because it seems to target those with disabilities and the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990, that act has worked to protect those with disabilities, not incentivize them to take their own Read More ›

After a bear was euthanized in California because she paw-swiped a human who owned a house under which the bruin and her cubs were living, there was a popular outcry. Now, a bill has been put in the hopper in the California State Senate promoting “coexistence” between people and wild animals. From S.B. 1135:

It is the policy of the state that the management of wildlife shall include an emphasis on the coexistence of humans and wildlife through department-led efforts to reduce, minimize, and mitigate conflicts. These efforts shall also seek to align with the state’s conservation, public safety, environmental planning, and climate adaptation goals and to be accomplished through coordination and cooperation between the department and wildlife coexistence partners.

Here are the details:

Upon appropriation by the Legislature, the department shall establish the Wildlife Coexistence Program to manage and promote wildlife coexistence by conducting all of the following activities:
(a) Managing, tracking, and responding to wildlife conflict calls, reports, and incident responses.
(b) Avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating conflicts between humans and wildlife by proactively and continuously implementing best practices that emphasize effective and ecologically appropriate nonlethal conflict resolution solutions developed using best available science and indigenous knowledge.
(c) Investigating, documenting, and analyzing reported human-wildlife incidents, including, but not limited to, depredation, perceived or actual human-wildlife conflicts, and wildlife health issues.
(d) Maintaining a statewide wildlife incident reporting tool.

A Canadian activist has argued that the mentally ill must have access to euthanasia to prevent their committing suicide. From the National Post story: A leading MAID advocate argued to parliamentarians last month that Canada must legalize assisted suicide for the mentally ill, lest those same patients commit suicide. The statement was made at a March 24 parliamentary committee debating the legalization of MAID for Canadians whose “sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness.” Jocelyn Downie, a leading MAID activist since 2004, warned that if the federal government keeps excluding mentally ill Canadians from accessing assisted suicide, the result will be more mentally ill Canadians dying by suicide. The idea here is that a “suicide” will be potentially messier Read More ›