Doctors in Canada, as well as, in the United States are reportedly being forced to act against their conscience for being mandated by a law to "kill-or-refer" disabled and mentally-ill patients, among others.
The National Right To Life (NRTL) said that doctors in Canada are being required to "kill-or-refer" patients for euthanasia including those who have dementia or mentally-ill and those who have disabilities.
"The euthanasia legalization law in Ontario, Canada similarly requires doctors to kill-or-refer patients who are legally qualified for euthanasia-which includes people with disabilities and soon will encompass the mentally ill and dementia patients," NRTL tweeted on Tuesday, October 26.
According to NRTL's News Today, the anti-conscience mandates in various countries are forcing medical professionals to violate their deepest-held beliefs.
"Coercion is becoming ubiquitous in medicine. Doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who oppose morally contentions medical procedures are increasingly being forced to choose between remaining in their professions and violating their deepest-held religious beliefs," the NRTL News Today stressed.
One such mandate is the "Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill of 2021" that Australia's Queensland past recently. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill of 2021 legally empowers doctors to execute the wish of a patient to die, even though it is against the said doctor's conscience--either to conduct the request personally or to find another doctor who will do so for the patient. A similar law is said to be in place in Canada.
"The law authorizes doctors to kill terminally ill patients who ask to die. That's bad enough. But it also requires conscientious objectors to become complicit in homicide by finding another doctor known to be willing to kill," NRTL explained.
"The euthanasia legalization law in Ontario, Canada similarly requires doctors to kill-or-refer patients who are legally qualified for euthanasia-which includes people with disabilities and soon will encompass the mentally ill and dementia patients," the organization added.
The said Canadian law disregards the medical professionals' constitutional rights to "freedom of religion and conscience" and gives more importance on the patient's access to "legal medical treatments" rights. A particular case on the said law involved a Catholic and his companion doctors who oppose the law filed a lawsuit on it as petition for exemption. The judge, however, ruled that the doctors "can get out of medicine" if they "don't like" the said law.
In the United States, a similar mandate is the Do Not Harm Act that opposes the Religious Freedom Restoration Act on the grounds of anti-discrimination that discredits the exemption "if the exemption would impose the religious views, habits, or practices of one party upon another."
NRTL News Writer Wesley Smith raised that governments resort to the "coercion" of medical professionals who object to such "controversial procedures" due to three reasons. Namely, to push "progressive ideology" in bioethics, to "silence" the "moral message," and to "obliterate medical science."
"First, stifling medical conscience would be a triumph for secular progressive ideology that predominates in bioethics and among the medical intelligentsia. Second, compelling doctors' participation in contentious procedures would silence the moral message communicated when a doctor or nurse says, 'No, I won't do this. It is wrong.' Third, obliterating medical conscience would allow political progressives to remove one of the few remaining cultural obstacles to their societal dominance," Smith pointed out.
Smith also raised that this coercion is "authoritarian" and "un-American" and, if it persists, the "anti-medical conscience" will succeed to the detriment of everyone.
