"... in a 'secular' state health care system, physicians should be forbidden to act on their moral or religious beliefs."

No More Christian Doctors

SEAN MURPHY

A crusade was recently started in Ontario against a physician and two colleagues by crusaders who are arguing that in a 'secular' state health care system, physicians should be forbidden to act on their moral or religious beliefs.

A 25 year old woman could not obtain a prescription for contraceptives at a clinic because the physician did not prescribe them for reasons of "medical judgment as well as professional ethical concerns and religious values." She obtained the prescription at a clinic two minutes away. A crusade was started against the physician and two colleagues with the same views. Crusaders argued that in a 'secular' state health care system, physicians should be forbidden to act on their moral or religious beliefs.

Physicians who refuse to prescribe contraceptives face a difficult challenge, since aggressive contraceptive promotion has left most people unaware of alternatives. Further, the social progress of women is widely attributed to contraceptives, so that failure to provide them risks an adverse reaction. Nonetheless, based on a respectful understanding of female fertility cycles and other factors, plausible reasons can be given to justify refusal to prescribe contraceptives and recommendation of Natural Family Planning.

The Supreme Court of Canada has acknowledged that secularists are believers, no less persons with religious beliefs. There is no legal warrant for the idea that a secular state must be purged of the expression of religious belief. The claim that a secular state or health care system is "faith-free" is radically false. Both religious belief and secularism can result in narrow dogmatism and intolerance, as demonstrated by the crusade against the physicians.

Since the practice of medicine is an inescapably moral enterprise, every decision concerning treatment is a moral decision. Since the practice of morality is a human enterprise, the secular public square is populated by people with many moral viewpoints. To discriminate against religious belief is a distortion of liberal principles. Moreover, if religious believers can be forced to do what they believe to be wrong, so can non-religious believers. This would establish a destructive and dangerous 'duty to do what is wrong.'

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for the background to this story go here:

Contents
Abstract
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Clinics
Appendix "A"

K.A. FB Timeline
Appendix "B"
B1- Jan. 29
B2- Jan. 29
B3- Jan. 31
B4- Jan. 31

Radical Handmaids
FB Timeline
Appendix "C"
C1- Jan. 29
C2- Jan. 30
C3- Jan. 30
C4-Jan. 31

Statistics
Appendix "D"
Appendix "D1"
Appendix "D2"

Fertility
Appendix "E"

CMA Policy History
Appendix "F"

Communication
Appendix "G"



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