No Room For Morality in Medicine - Huh?

CALGARY HERALD:

"It is profoundly troubling to observe something as personal as the right to live by one's conscience superceded by the collective right to medical services, which is not the least bit endangered in this instance.

There is no justification for accusing a doctor of professional misconduct for acting within the bounds of conscience. Any woman, for instance, whose doctor refuses to refer her for an abortion can turn to the Yellow Pages to find agencies willing to help her.

If the College enacts this policy, it will mean that doctors will leave Ontario, further adding to the physician shortage there, according to Saskatchewan MP Maurice Vellacott, who has introduced a private member's bill, C-537, which would amend the Criminal Code to protect health-care workers' conscience rights.

"The policy jeopardizes or blackmails doctors," says Vellacott. The College's motivation to draft the policy came, Vellacott says, not because of a complaint filed with the provincial human rights commission against a doctor, but rather as a means of pro-actively preventing such complaints.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services put forward a regulation to protect doctors and other health-care professionals from being fired or losing their certification if they refuse to provide services that run counter to their personal beliefs.

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt described the regulation as "protecting the right of a physician to practise medicine according to his or her moral compass." Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc., objects to the regulation, saying it risks compromising women's ability "to manage their own health care" because of politics and ideology.

The real ideology at work is one that dictates an individual is not entitled to freedom of conscience if they do not morally support a pet liberal cause. The College should be protecting doctors' rights to live by their consciences, not aiding and abetting human rights commissions in sacrificing those rights on the altar of political correctness."
(h/t bigbluewave)

It occurs to me, that if the doctors remove 'morality' entirely from their profession by disallowing the practice of morality by their own peers, they become purely purveyors of technical skills, and should no longer be allowed the 'special' status that has afforded them an elevated place in our society. They will not warrant our trust. Ironic, that at the very moment they wish to eliminate any pretense of 'caring', they are also trying to lock themselves in as the sole arbiters of life and death, the only authority on rubrics of human value.

Its a power grab, and they are not the 'good' guys.


Go for it Ontario - the rest of us can certainly use more GOOD doctors!!