Doctors challenge Ontario policy to refer for services that clash with morals

The medical profession is an art as much as it is a science.

At every point, clinicians are called upon to use their judgment about what is best for their patients.  Doctors who are forced to act against their conscience cannot be trusted; and without trust, the medical establishment can no longer be seen to be helping rather than harming.  Indeed, we can be fairly certain that more harm than good will be done.

Physicians once swore to the Hippocratic Oath, whose principle injunction is ‘first do no harm.’

Our society is built upon an awareness of our collective need to insure that people who exercise responsibility over others be able to follow their consciences.

Preventing that by diktat not only destroys the integrity of the persons concerned, in this case the medical professionals, but the society that depends on them acting in private as they profess to do in public…

Read the full article