Against abortion or assisted dying? No med school for you

[Shadow Wolf]

I understand fully what euthanasia is. Doctors I'm sure understand it as well. Certain people can't take a life and my guess would be higher than 50% of people which include Doctor's forcing them to not be Doctors because they won't commit to euthanasia is stupid. To be honest euthanasia and abortion should fall in realm of Psychiatrists. Psychiatrist should insure that the patient is not being coerced into something they don't want and that they are in there right mind and in the case of abortion prepared to handle the aftermath. Psychiatrists can issue prescriptions in the US, I would assume they can in Canada as well. They can then get the patient the drug to kill themselves and be on-site when its administered. There even is an abortion pill now that can be prescribed. A simple course would be required for the Psychiatrist to administer vs training doctors in psychology. Or just make the prescriptions over the counter so anyone can get them without involving others.

Do be aware, even in places where euthanasia is legal, it is basically and practically impossible to do it on a whim. You have to be dying, you have to be suffering, you have to express the desire to die at multiple interviews in style places.
And OTC? There is absolutely no way anyone on the medical field, myself included, who would even ever dream of making such drugs OTC.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What does this response have to do with anything being discussed?

Yes, democracy is "tyranny of the majority" to the individual that wants to do whatever he wants, however he wants, whenever he wants, for whatever reason he wants, to whomever he wants.

Is also tyranny against homosexuals, transgenders, women, black people, and the poor and the infirm. Democracy is an economic threat and environmental risk. It's mob rule, which is why America wasn't established as one.

 

[bobhikes]

Do be aware, even in places where euthanasia is legal, it is basically and practically impossible to do it on a whim. You have to be dying, you have to be suffering, you have to express the desire to die at multiple interviews in style places.
And OTC? There is absolutely no way anyone on the medical field, myself included, who would even ever dream of making such drugs OTC.

So why would you want an untrained General Practitioner or a Urologist doing it without specific training. Why should they have to swear that they will do it or not be trained in the profession. That is what the OP is saying all doctors perhaps even dentists (I don't know if dentists are categorized as doctors in Canada) have to swear to do abortions and euthanasia before being allowed to go to school to be a doctor. It is stupid.

 

[1213]

A Canadian bioethicist is proposing that medical and pharmacist schools reject applicants who indicate that they would refuse to provide medical treatment, including abortion and assisted dying, on conscientious grounds:

Medical schools should deny applicants who object to provide abortion, assisted death: bioethicist…

It is good, if you want to pick people who don’t love and who are ready to for example sell babies for highest bidder.

I hope I don’t have to be in any contact with people who are without love.

 

[PureX]

Is also tyranny against homosexuals, transgenders, women, black people, and the poor and the infirm. Democracy is an economic threat and environmental risk. It's mob rule, which is why America wasn't established as one.

Democracy has to be tempered with equality (of freedom, of justice, and of opportunity) or it does become tyranny. The problem is that selfish people don't like equality. Greedy people don't like equality. Egotists don't like equality. A lot of religious zealots don't like equality. Bigots of all kinds (racists, misogynists, xenophobes, homophobes, ...) clearly don't like equality, ESPECIALLY when it affords others the same social access and opportunities for advancement that it affords us.

So it turns out that we LOVE 'mob rule' so long as it's our mob that's doing the ruling.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

In an environment where there's heavy competition to get into medical schools, only the best students are going to get in. I think it makes sense for the measurement of "best" to include a look at the applicant's ethics, not just their academic performance. What are your thoughts?

In general, I support the idea that if your personal values would prevent you from doing your job, find another job. This goes especially for wedding cake bakers.

That being said, I am a retired physician and pro-choice, but wouldn't want to perform an abortion. I won't kill anything except flies and mosquitoes in my home. I won't even kill a cockroach if I can remove it to the garden, as when one gets stuck in a dog food bowl. And I won't fish or hunt. Too traumatic. Too revulsive.

That was never an issue, since I wasn't trained in the procedure. I also had no qualms about referring a pregnant girl or woman for abortion, and completely support her right to make that decision rather than the church using the might of the state to make the choice for her.

Incidentally, to those that have posted that medicine is about saving lives, that's not correct. I was an internist and a hospice medical director. We seldom saved lives. Lives are saved by EMTs and surgeons. We taught good health habits (diet, exercise, weight loss). We protected function, attempted to prevent conditions like hypertension and diabetes from becoming strokes and blindness, and protected comfort as when treating migraine.

Or terminal illness. As I said, I have hospice experience, and was board certified in Hospice and Palliative Care as well as Internal Medicine. My job there was to midwife the suffering dying back to wherever they came from when they were midwifed into this world, with as little suffering as possible. There is a principle in hospice called second effect. If a person with esophageal cancer is sputtering for an inability to clear secretions, and frequent suctioning is insufficient to provide comfort, we will give medication that besides relieving suffering, might lead to comfortably drowning in one's own secretions. That is, the treatment hastened death, but was not given for that purpose.

And we were condemned by clergy, who called what we did giving up and not treating life as sacred. Of course, I considered their position immoral as well. If you've got a patient with no realistic chance of living more than a few weeks or months - often days - who is suffering, wants comfort care, and does not want life-prolonging treatments, anybody who wants to prevent that is immoral in my estimation.

This kind of thing only comes from the church, which doesn't mind attempting to impose its views on all.

The whole reason that the this story came up now is because of legislation that, if passed, would get rid of the "have someone else do it" option. The Alberta legislature has a bill that would remove the requirement for a physician to refer the patient to someone else if they refused a treatment or service for reasons of conscience.

These are the kinds of issues that make me not care about what the religious want, or . They don't seem to care about the rights of a pregnant woman to get a legal abortion, so why should anybody else care about their rights?

Believe as we say, or you will be denied the opportunity to pursue your chosen profession.

No. Keep your religion at home when on the job. If that's not acceptable, then find work you can do in good conscience.

What if, as an atheist, I tried to go to seminary to become a Catholic priest. Should the Catholics admit e to their school? Would that be a case of "believe as we say, or you will be denied the opportunity to pursue your chosen profession"? If so, is it inappropriate?

This is simply another idea designed to strip people of certain religions from a profession.

Certain people don't belong in certain professions.

The Hippocratic oath says " first, cause no harm".

No physician accepts that. It is impossible to do good without harming some people in the process, as when people die from an allergic reaction to an antibiotic, or don't make it back from coronary bypass surgery. To never do harm means to never do anything. Both of those patients were harmed, but there would be more net harm societally if we stopped giving antibiotics or doing surgery in order to "first do no harm"

When they graduate, these students have every right to hold whatever ethical view they choose.

But they don't always have the right to impose it on the job. I was an intern in 1981 when AIDS became a household word. Many healthcare professionals were afraid of these patients, especially in surgery or if they came into the ER with traumatic bleeding. We were told in no uncertain terms that we would serve where needed - that our personal view was irrelevant - and that if we didn't want to treat such patients, we wouldn't be needed as house staff any longer.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If a doctor refuses to perform certain things because of personal ethics and you disagree one is free to seek out another doctor that will.

And if a medical school applicant "refuses to perform certain things because of personal ethics" and the interviewer disapproves, that applicant is free to seek out another medical school that doesn't care.

Medicine isn't practiced according to personal preferences, but standard of care. If you choose to deviate from accepted medical practices, you have gone rogue and are at risk of being disciplined by your hospital and/or state medical board. You are not free to let a patient suffer because you believe as Mother Teresa did that, "There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering."

That person ending up running dozens of hospices, undertreating the pain of the suffering dying as if that were a virtue. She would be unwelcome in those I worked for.

Why should society make an effort to tolerate people who are unwilling to tolerate that society in return?

Agreed. This is why I have lost interest in the rights the religious claim for themselves, and which they believe trump the rights of others. There was a thread this weekend on that topic, which I didn't participate in, but would have said that I recognize no other religious rights than the right to believe (but not practice) whatever you like, to read a holy book, pray, and assemble with like-minded people perhaps to hear sermons or sing hymns, decorate a home or tree for Christmas, and to adorn one's neck or car bumper with religious images - and that's about it. I acknowledge no right to refuse service based on personal beliefs. I prefer the right to receive that service whether it be an abortion or a wedding cake. The religious have become too spoiled in their demands and expectations.

I have stood by for a long time, wondering whether my small voice would make any impact upon the debate, currently raging in society, on the subject of Abortion.

What debate? You've got the religious with theocratic tendencies trying to pull America back to a bad old time. I watched the Netflix documentary on Gloria Allred, a prominent American feminist activist and attorney, and learned that she had been raped at gunpoint at age 25 while vacationing in the Caribbean, before abortion was legal. She was asked if that was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. She answered no. It was the back alley abortion she needed because of the rape. She began hemorrhaging and developed a fever of 106 degrees due to infection, almost dying in the process, and nearly died.

Your church would have this back, but I say never again. Those are the things I care about, not religious preferences. If your religion or conscience forbids you to get an abortion, don't get one. That's your freedom. But if you would impose those views on others, then you need to be stopped.

The issue does not revolve around Abortion per SE, anymore than it revolves around adultery, or Birth Control, per SE. It revolves around the issue of determining at what point life begins in the womb.

Disagree. The only issue is who gets to decide, the woman or the state. The point at which you or anybody else believes a human life begins is irrelevant to me. Pick whatever stage you like. It doesn't make abortion immoral before the fetus is conscious and capable of experiencing fear and pain.

do you really think a doctor goes 6-10 years in school for learning how to cure people, to end up taking life or assist someone who wants to die?

Yes. I did. I was proud of my hospice work helping people to die comfortably and with dignity. Were you aware of the etymology of euthanasia - good (or well) death

 

[Shadow Wolf]

It is stupid.

Not really. It only ensures that doctors are willing to put the patient ahead of their own self. Which is an absolute must in healthcare.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

I have criticised pro lifers on improper, emotional language many times (child vs. foetus) so I felt obligated to do it here.

My language? Emotional? Improper? Whatever.

Citation Needed.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Nope. Sinning on purpose creates a mockery of Christ's atonement,.

Citation needed. This is YOUR interpretation, not backed by anything in the actual bible. I've seen and heard Christian after Christian going on and on about how they are Sinners, and in need of Constant Refurbishment or something.

This is no different-- IT IS JUST AN EXCUSE to force your ugly beliefs onto the world.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

So it turns out that we LOVE 'mob rule' so long as it's our mob that's doing the ruling.

Exactly why America was not intended to be a democracy, because liberties and freedoms are lost and needlessly curtailed under a democracy, all at the behest and whims of the average voter/citizen. It's all great and wonderful until along comes a democratically elected governor who democratically strips, in the band of preserving from, you of liberties and rights only because your brain and birth sex don't match.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

It is good, if you want to pick people who don’t love and who are ready to for example sell babies for highest bidder.

I hope I don’t have to be in any contact with people who are without love.

So you want to keep out of contact with pretty much all fundamentalists, then?

Good strategy!

 

[PureX]

Exactly why America was not intended to be a democracy, because liberties and freedoms are lost and needlessly curtailed under a democracy, all at the behest and whims of the average voter/citizen. It's all great and wonderful until along comes a democratically elected governor who democratically strips, in the band of preserving from, you of liberties and rights only because your brain and birth sex don't match.

Self-interest blinds us from our need and responsibility to protect the interests of all our fellow citizens. And unfortunately, there is no form of government that can save us from ourselves when we choose the path of selfishness over the path of unity.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Self-interest blinds us from our need and responsibility to protect the interests of all our fellow citizens. And unfortunately, there is no form of government that can save us from ourselves when we choose the path of selfishness over the path of unity.

We have seen Christianity without limits-- it was called The Dark Ages.

The Founding Fathers deliberately, and With Design, limited Christianity's ability to persecute those not in it's particular Club. All religion is so limited, in fact.

This is Good. Unfortunately, it was not fully implemented in 1776... and is, even now, religious bigotry only JUST beginning to be curtailed.

 

[bobhikes]

Not really. It only ensures that doctors are willing to put the patient ahead of their own self. Which is an absolute must in healthcare.

Except it is not a medical or health care decision but a personal decision. There is no scientific time to get euthanasia or an abortion. Many people will not choose either.

 

[robocop (actually)]

Citation needed. This is YOUR interpretation, not backed by anything in the actual bible. I've seen and heard Christian after Christian going on and on about how they are Sinners, and in need of Constant Refurbishment or something.

This is no different-- IT IS JUST AN EXCUSE to force your ugly beliefs onto the world.

No citation needed. Jesus set the perfect example and descended below all things so we would always be maximally motivated to do what's right. Sinning on purpose is different than sinning from temptation... a lot different.

You are pushing your views just as much as I am, and you are justifying your beliefs as poorly as you think I am as well.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Self-interest blinds us from our need and responsibility to protect the interests of all our fellow citizens.

Where is it written and mandated that those are our responsibilities?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Except it is not a medical or health care decision but a personal decision.

Assisted suicide is very much entirely a medical decision related to care.

 

[bobhikes]

Assisted suicide is very much entirely a medical decision related to care.

So in Canada you have medically defined time to put people down. Glad I'm a US citizen.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

So in Canada you have medically defined time to put people down.

Great! People shouldn't have to suffer needlessly when they dont want to because someone else is took that choice from them and made it for them.