GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: Canadian doctors should not be forced to refer for euthanasia, says association

sábado, 16 de enero de 2016

BioEdge: Canadian doctors should not be forced to refer for euthanasia, says association

Canadian doctors should not be forced to refer for euthanasia, says association

by Michael Cook | 16 Jan 2016 |

Canadian doctors should not be forced to refer patients for euthanasia if they feel that complicity is “morally abhorrent”, says the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), the national voice for Canadian physicians.

In a strongly worded appeal, it urges the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), the government regulator in that province, not to mandate “effective referral”. After surveying its members the CMA says that some doctors are willing to perform euthanasia and most are willing to refer if they choose not to do it. But most also support the right of conscientious objectors not to participate in any way. “The only way to authentically respect conscience is to respect differences of conscience,” the CMA says.

The CPSO wants to guarantee that all patients should have access to euthanasia. However, the CMA argues that this is the responsibility not of doctors but of the community. It sums up its argument as follows:

It is in fact in a patient's best interests and in the public interest for physicians to act as moral agents, and not as technicians or service providers devoid of moral judgement. At a time when some feel that we are seeing increasingly problematic behaviours, and what some view as a crisis in professionalism, medical regulators ought to be articulating obligations that encourage moral agency, instead of imposing a duty that is essentially punitive to those for whom it is intended and renders an impoverished understanding of conscience.

The CMA statement was published on the Protection of Conscience Project

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/canadian-doctors-should-not-be-forced-to-refer-for-euthanasia-says-associat/11710#sthash.V3Op7wYQ.dpuf

In his State of the Union address President Obama announced a cancer moonshot: an ambitious plan to cure cancer. "The same kind of concentrated effort that split the atom and took man to the moon should be turned toward conquering this dread disease," he said.

Oops. He didn’t say that. Richard Nixon did in his 1971 State of the Union address. “We want to be the first generation that finally wins the war on cancer,” then-Vice President Al Gore said in 1998. “For the first time, the enemy is outmatched.”

It’s not just the politicians who know how to cure cancer. Scientists make big promises as well. In 2005 the Director at the National Cancer Institute, Andrew von Eschenbach, said “Our plan is to eliminate the suffering and death that result from this process that we understand as cancer, and we are committed to a goal of doing so as early as 2015.”

That commitment was made only ten years ago and cancer is still the second leading cause of death in the United States.

It’s great to feel optimistic, but one has the feeling that promises like these are made to distract voters from other issues. “It’s a bit utopian at this point,” agreed Barrie Bode, a professor at Northern Illinois University and a 20-year cancer researcher, told MarketWatch. “It’s like saying we need to fix the economy once and for all. Right, like that’s going to happen,” he said.

However, if you are looking for a job in cancer research, now looks like a very good time.