I have been warning that doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others will face the cruel choice between complicity in the killing of patients or their professions. I call this authoritarianism, “medical martyrdom.”
That is already the law around abortion in Victoria, Australia and around euthanasia in Quebec.
And now, with the Canadian Supreme Court imposing nation-wide euthanasia on the country, stating that the medical associations should be relied on to decide whether doctors are forced to participate.
The Ontario and Saskatchewan medical colleges have already opined that doctors should be forced to kill patients who are eligible for euthanasia–or refer to a doctor they know will put the patient six feet under.
Now, the head of the Canadian Medical Associations is throwing his Hippocratic Oath-believing/religiously opposed colleagues under the bus. From the National Post story:
Doctors who object to helping eligible patients end their lives should refer patients to someone who would be willing and able to help make it happen, suggests the head of the country’s largest physicians’ group. “We don’t support anything that’s going to impede patients from accessing a legal service,” said Dr. Chris Simpson, outgoing president of the Canadian Medical Association.
A few years ago the CMA was on record firmly against euthanasia. Then, in an abject display of cowardice, it went neutral. Now, Simpson wants to betray his fellow physicians by forcing them to participate in euthanasia or become death pimps.
Canada is supposed to be a free country. But any nation that would force medical professionals take or be complicit in the taking of human life against their will is not free.
Culture of death, Wesley? What culture of death?