Commentary Coercion is becoming ubiquitous in medicine. It’s not just vaccine mandates. 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. Take the new “Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill of 2021” just passed in Queensland, Australia. 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. 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. When Catholic and other conscientiously opposed doctors sued to be exempted because the referral requirement violated their Charter rights to “freedom of religion and conscience,” a court …
Anti-Conscience Mandates Force Doctors to Violate Their Religious Beliefs
October 21, 2021
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