Will Canadian Universities Require Med Students to Learn How to Euthanize Patients?

International   |   Wesley J. Smith   |   Apr 2, 2015   |   5:48PM   |   Ottawa, Canada

Now that the Canadian Supreme Court has imposed a nationwide euthanasia regime, doctors are going to have to learn to kill.

That’s not so easy. Some of the killed will be physically healthy since the new Charter right compels access to lethal jabs for anyone with a diagnosable condition that causes irremediable suffering–which the patient decides, and which can include “psychological pain.”

Medical schools in the USA don’t have such courses–yet. That means the Canadian medical establishment will have to create Euthanasia 101, and Advanced Assisted Suicide Theory type classes.

And so they are. From the Vancouver Sun story:

Now that the Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed Criminal Code provisions against physicians who help terminally ill patients [Me: NOT LIMITED TO THE TERMINALLY ILL] in intractable pain [Me: DOES NOT REQUIRE INTRACTABLE PAIN] end their lives, doctors must get up to speed on the drug cocktails and methods for hastening death, not to mention the ethical issues and processes, [Dignity in Dying’s Derryck] Smith said.

CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!

 

In its unanimous ruling in February, the Supreme Court gave Parliament a year to introduce a new law that heeds the right of consenting adults with a “grievous and irremediable” illness to seek physician aid to end their lives. Dr. Dave Snadden, executive dean (education) at the University of B.C. medical school, said the curriculum is already in a process of “renewal” and once the federal government announces the legal framework and processes to be followed, medical educators will have a clearer picture of what students and medical residents need to know about physician-assisted death.

“The curriculum is always a dynamic thing that must respond to changes in knowledge, medical science, laws and ethics. There’s a lot more to learn about than just setting up the drip,” he said, referring to intravenous drugs to hasten death.

What cowards! What abdication of the ethical obligation of doctors and medical schools to lead.

Don’t acquiesce: RESIST!

How?

  • Hippocratic doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals should march in the streets chanting a version of, “Hell no, we won’t go,” to the euthanasia conscription to which they are being  subjected.
  • Their protests marches should include mass public recitations of the Hippocratic Oath.
  • They should hang “Euthanasia Free Zone” signs in their waiting rooms.

During World War II, German occupiers tried to force Netherlander doctors to practice medicine the German way, which included euthanizing babies and the disabled. They took down their shingles and refused to sign birth and death certificates! Some were sent to concentration camps, but their non violent civil disobedience prevailed–against the Nazis!

picassistedsuicide18

Alas, the Canadian medical establishment doesn’t have that kind of character or backbone.

Rather than aren’t standing against the killing tide, medical colleges (associations) are passing ethics mandates that require every doctor in Canada to participate or be complicit in euthanasia. No conscience allowed!

This will start a process of self-exclusion in which would-be doctors who oppose killing will instead choose to do something else. Worse, medical schools will be on the look out for dissenters and keep them out of class.

All doctors practicing in Canada will have to be Jack Kevorkians now as a condition of licensure and good standing.

If that doesn’t scare the country, what will?

LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.