Christin Hilbert

I strongly request the "effective referral" to be removed from the Standard. The whole point of conscientious objection is to not be involved in a referral, which means you are agreeing with the procedure, just referring to those with the technical skill to execute it. For example, as Canada does not condone capital punishment, if we extradite someone to a country where we know they will be executed for that crime, have we washed our hands of the capital punishment? Or have we just referred to a country that will do that since we don't? Similarly, objecting practitioners don't want to be involved in the referral process to be part of a link that will end in that patient's MAiD death. Alberta has done a great job of balancing on the tightrope of patient and physician rights by establishing a self-referral service. As well, I feel kind of cheated in that when MAiD first was legalized (physician-assisted suicide having been considered unthinkable for centuries if not millenia before), we were promised that we wouldn't have to participate against our consciences, and that it would ONLY be used in cases where death was imminent. Already the slippery slope we were told wouldn't happen is here; MAiD is now being used for non-imminent death and the slope is only getting steeper as mental health sufferers (including mature minors) may be able to end their life if the expansion of MAiD goes through. As society slides down the slope, please give those who didn't want to hop on in the first place the right to stay off - all the while continuing to maintain the rest of the standard: like mutual respect, providing resource information (care coordination service), not violating boundaries and all the other Hippocratic professional behaviours expected of ethical practitioners.

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