THE HEALTHCARE CANCEL CULTURE
By Julie Grimstad
August 2, 2021
Conscience is the most sacred of all property.
– James Madison
Conscience
is the inner voice that gives a person the ability to recognize good
and evil and choose between them. It is God speaking to a person.
Nothing attests to the dignity our Creator has bestowed on humans more
than this ability, which mere animals do not possess. It follows that
coercing a person to act against his or her conscience violates human
dignity and infringes on the person’s liberty to do what is good and
avoid what is evil.
For healthcare workers who respect the sanctity of human life,
participating in certain procedures – such as abortion, assisted suicide
and euthanasia – is unthinkable.
Throughout the ages, numerous people have withstood merciless
persecution for refusing to violate their consciences. That kind of
courage is needed today when healthcare workers are bullied into
providing “medical services” which they find morally repugnant. Some
have even been forced out of their jobs for steadfastly adhering to
their ethical or religious principles.
Unwanted: medical professionals with pro-life values
The notion that healthcare workers should be forced to do what they are
told is not new. In 1985, the Second National Voluntary Euthanasia
Conference (Britain) – “Good Life, Good Death Through Control and
Choice” – featured Dr. Colin Brewer, a London psychiatrist. Addressing
American participants, Brewer compared attitudes on euthanasia, abortion and contraception and explained how to coerce doctors into cooperating.
He said, "First we ask if they will provide contraception and we won't
pay them unless they do. It's amazing how quickly they change their
minds."
The view that medical professionals have no right to refuse to provide
“healthcare services” that are morally unacceptable to them is being
embraced by more and more bioethicists. In 2015, Canadian Professor Udo
Schuklenk of Queens University, editor-in-chief of the journal Bioethics, attacked conscientious objection:
...........The very idea that we ought to countenance conscientious ...........objection in any profession is objectionable. Nobody forces ...........anyone to become a professional. It is a voluntary choice. A ...........conscientious objector in medicine is not dissimilar to a
...........taxi driver who joins a taxi company that runs a fleet of mostly ...........combustion engine cars and who objects on grounds of ...........conscience to drive those cars due to environmental concerns.
He also stated, “Dying patients living in rural areas should not be subjected to an access-to-assisted-dying-lottery
caused by conscientious objectors.” And “Conscience clauses today are
by and large a concession of special rights to Christian health care
professionals, at least in secular Western democracies." [2] In short,
it is Schuklenk’s opinion that pro-life medical professionals, most
notably Christians, should be forced to kill patients or quit practicing
medicine. He is not alone.
In 2019, the Christian Medical and Dental Associations’ website shared
an article about conscience rights in the US. The author reported,
“Affordable Care Act architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and University of
Pennsylvania professor Ronit Stahl lay the foundation for getting rid of
healthcare conscience protections in a New England Journal of Medicine opinion piece entitled, ‘Physicians, Not Conscripts — Conscientious Objection in Health Care.’ Their message is simple: Choice is a one-way street. Patients get to choose; doctors don’t—at least not after they enter the medical profession.” [Emphasis added.] [3]
A license to practice medicine should not be a mandate to murder.
We will not be silenced!
There was a time when Christians were considered of great benefit to
society, not enemies to be crushed. Christians built hospitals, schools,
and orphanages. The Church was renowned for her works of charity.
Christians fed and clothed the poor, cared for the sick, instructed the
ignorant, and generally promoted the common good.
Christians still do all those things but are now maligned and hindered
in our efforts by those who want to cancel our consciences. But we are
not cowards. We will not be silent. We will defend the conscience rights
of healthcare workers and protest violations of human life with all the
resources at our command until we draw our last breaths.
We pray for protection and strength for healthcare providers so that
overbearing bullies will never be able to silence that inner voice which
moves them to do good and avoid evil.
Special note:
“In a ‘pro-choice’ assault on freedom of choice, the European Parliament
has adopted a resolution that enshrines abortion as a ‘human right’ and
targets the conscience rights of doctors who refuse to commit
abortions.” – C-Fam (Center for Family & Human Rights), Letter from the UN Front, July 2021.
C-Fam reports that this resolution directs EU countries to remove “all
limitations” on abortions during the COVID-19 emergency, endorses
radical “comprehensive sexuality education,” and calls for bans on any
therapy to help people with homosexual attraction or gender dysphoria to
cope with or overcome their condition. This is not only an infringement
on the conscience rights of healthcare providers who refuse to kill
preborn babies, but also on parental rights to make healthcare decisions
for their minor children. (For related information, see June 15, 2021,HALO Alert, June is Designated as "Pride Month": The Terrorism of Transgenderism (campaign-archive.com)
[1] Jonah McKeown, “A Catholic healthcare worker objected to contraception. Her Catholic clinic fired her.” Catholic News Agency, Sept. 10, 2020
[2] “Conscientious objection in medicine: Private ideological convictions must not supersede public service obligations,” Udo Schuklenk’s Ethx Blog, March 26, 2015
[3] Jonathan Imbody, “’Choose, You Lose’ Scheme threatens All Ethical Professionals,” Christian Medical and Dental Associations (cmda.org)
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MISSION STATEMENT
The
mission of the Healthcare Advocacy and Leadership Organization is to
promote, protect, and advocate for the rights of the medically
vulnerable through direct patient and family interactions; through
intercessory prayer; through community education and awareness programs;
and through promotion and development of concrete *"life-affirming
healthcare"* alternatives for those facing the grave consequences of
healthcare rationing and unethical practices, especially those at risk
of euthanasia and assisted suicide.
*"Life-affirming healthcare" is defined as medical care in which the
paramount principle is the sanctity of life, which means that the life
and safety of each person come first and each person receives medical
care across their lifespan based on their need for care and never with
an intention to hasten death, regardless of their abilities or perceived
"quality of life."
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