New York

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.”

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.

New York just legalized assisted suicide. Adding insult to injury, the law requires morally or religiously objecting doctors to be complicit in assisted suicides by cooperating with some of its provisions. Specifically, the Medical Aid in Dying Act requires that the “attending physician” of patients requesting assisted suicide perform specified functions before patients can be prescribed lethal substances, with no apparent opt-out in the law that I could discern for physicians who are morally or religiously opposed to such a request. These mandatory actions include examining the patient to determine whether the illness is terminal, referring the patient to a consulting doctor to approve the assisted suicide, and discussing the “potential risks associated with taking the medication” (among others), the Read More ›

The Illinois Legislature has just passed an assisted suicide legalization bill, tying a black bow along with New York’s legalization bill passed a few months ago. Both measures still await signing by the states’ respective governors, which I fear is quite likely as the death agenda is firmly ensconced in blue state liberal/progressive policy on assisted suicide.

Should the bills get signed into law, more people will live in jurisdictions (including three of our most populous: California, New York, and Illinois) that validate some suicides and allow doctors to facilitate such deaths than live in states where assisted suicide remains illegal.

The states are nationalizing assisted suicide as well. New York’s bill has no residency requirement. Vermont and Oregon did away with theirs. And the Illinois bill’s residency requirement is so weak that one could become a resident in a day by, say, renting an apartment and registering to vote.

New York is close to passing a bill to legalize assisted suicide. Having passed the assembly, it is currently being considered in the senate. I read the bill, and much of it consists of the usual obfuscating definitions and pretenses seen in all such proposals. But a few of the provisions struck me as particularly mendacious. First, it defines prescribing poison as a “medical practice.” From S. 138: “Medical aid in dying” means the medical practice of a physician prescribing medication to a qualified individual that the individual may choose to self-administer to bring about death. Facilitating suicide is not, and never has been, “medical.” I could prescribe sufficient barbiturates to cause death by overdose. You could too. The only Read More ›

A bill has been filed in New York that would grant rights to the Great Lakes and all waterways in the state. (A similar law was enacted previously in Toledo, forcing Ohio to pass preemptive legislation.) I have no idea whether it will pass — I would certainly hope not — but it illustrates the profound anti-development/free market agendas behind the entire nature-rights movement. First, the bill would create a very expansive definition of the rights that would be accorded to the Great Lakes and New York waterways. From A05156A (italicized for emphasis): The Great Lakes, and the watersheds that drain into the Great Lakes and their connecting channels, as well as the watersheds and ecosystems throughout the state of Read More ›