Thread by @KristopherWells

Shakespeare once wrote that “Conscience is but a word cowards use, devised at first to keep the strong in awe.”

A doctors' conscience has little place in the delivery of modern medical care.

Check out this article from The British Medical Journal

bmj.com/content/332/75…

Bill 207 is another example of how the UCP want to being American style health care to Canada.

Read how Canada’s health care system has already resolved the issue of conscience rights. #abhealth #ableg #abpoli

cmajnews.com/2018/02/12/can…

“In Canadian jurisprudence, freedom of conscience only holds for individuals, not for institutions.”

And importantly, even for health care professionals, the right to object does not give them the right to abandon their patient.

“In patient-centred health care, medical decisions should reflect patient values, not physician values.”

Conscientious objection can also be viewed “as medical abandonment and cause some patients to experience unnecessary or prolonged suffering.”

“There are three general contexts in which it is permissible and sometimes obligatory to refuse care: when doctors are subjected to abusive treatment, when the treatment requested is outside a doctor’s scope of practice or when providing the requested treatment would otherwise...

violate one’s duties as a physician, such as the Hippocratic mandate to “first do no harm.” But none of these rationales can justify physicians denying care based on their personal beliefs.”

statnews.com/2019/11/08/con…

“It is unethical for a physician to deny care to LGBTQ+ patients because of personal objections about whom his or her patients choose to love in their private lives.”

“It is unethical to refuse to prescribe contraception to single individuals because of personal or religious objections to premarital or nonprocreative sex.”

“It is a physician’s duty is to promote patients’ wellness and flourishing through the application of evidence-based medicine to the best of his or her professional ability. Personal beliefs, religious or otherwise, must not interfere with that.”

Physicians have an important fiduciary responsibility to their patients. This means they must always act in their best interests and do no harm.

This is a basic tenet of the medical profession. If you can’t uphold it, you shouldn’t be in the medical profession.

“Doctors are asked all the time to sacrifice personal beliefs in the service of professional ideals.”

This is a great read on a complex issue.

nytimes.com/2019/05/13/opi…

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