The Proposed Abortion Legislation Dr Catherine Hallagan, spokesperson for the New Zealand Health Professionals Alliance is hugely disappointed at the proposed Abortion Legislation Bill released by Cabinet today. Dr Hallagan says that Abortion must remain in the Crimes Act because, at some point, killing a child is a crime. It should remain a crime to kill a baby in utero, unless the grounds for abortion are met as defined in …Read More
Tag Archives: medical professionals
Pulling the plug on conscience rights
Originally published in First Things, December 2009 by Wesley J. Smith Over the past fifty years, the purposes and practices of medicine have changed radically. Where medical ethics was once life-affirming, today’s treatments and medical procedures increasingly involve the legal taking of human life. The litany is familiar: More than one million pregnancies are extinguished each year in the United States, thousands late-term. Physician-assisted suicide is legal in Oregon, …Read More
Protecting the Careers of Medical Professionals Who Believe in the Hippocratic Oath
Originally published in The Center for Bioethics and Culture, May 2009 by Wesley J. Smith We live in a culturally diverse society in which people vary greatly in their moral beliefs about the importance of human life. These profound differences are most bitterly expressed in the medical context, particularly with regard to issues such as abortion, physician-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research, and other life and death policies and procedures. …Read More
Doctor support for assisted suicide drops radically after legalization
Originally published in HOPE: Preventing Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide A survey of Canadian doctors reveals that the support of medical professionals for assisted suicide drops significantly once the process becomes legal, with most physicians now refusing to participate in the administration of lethal drugs to their patients. According to the December 2017 edition of Magazine Le Spécialiste which details the survey, the objections from physicians “were far more frequent than …Read More
Margaret Wong: Abortion involves more than a mother’s body
Originally published in the NZ Herald, 2 June 2016 Margaret Wong is a practising midwife who has also been a neonatal intensive care nurse and Plunket nurse during the past 40 years. Lizzie Marvelly is right; every woman should be able to make her own choices. Certainly in New Zealand, we have more choices than in any other time in history. New Zealand is probably one of the easiest countries …Read More
Dear Canada, Respect for Conscience is Fundamental to Health Care
Rachael Wong is a lawyer from Auckland who is currently working as a legal consultant with the Law Reform Commission in Samoa. She has recently completed a Master of Bioethics and Health Law for which she wrote her dissertation on freedom of conscience in health care. She maintains that a health professional’s exercise of conscience is inseparable from their delivery of health care. Writing for First Things, Wesley J. Smith …Read More
Palliative Care is Everyone’s Business
Dr Lucia Mitchell is a General Practitioner and Palliative Care Doctor who works in Richmond, Nelson, New Zealand. She shares with us her submission to the Health Select Committee on the investigation into ending one’s life in New Zealand. I oppose any legalisation of euthanasia or assisted suicide in New Zealand. Death has in many ways been distanced from our daily lives and has become foreign, unfamiliar and feared. Health …Read More
Doctors Say No to Assisted Suicide
The NZHPA strongly encourages all New Zealand doctors to sign the Open Letter published by the Care Alliance opposing medical involvement in euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Care Alliance’s press release and Open Letter are re-published below: Wednesday, 9 December 2015, 3:47 pm Press Release: Care Alliance Doctors say no to assisted suicide New Zealand doctors are being invited to add their name to an Open Letter rejecting medical involvement …Read More
The Right to Freedom of Conscience
By Neil Vaney Introduction A recent post from Terry Bellamak, new president of the Abortion Law Rights Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ), questions why health professionals such as doctors and nurses should be legally able to use the claim of freedom of conscience in refusing to provide contraceptive or abortion advice or services. (http://wp.me/x1XY6w-z1, 14 Sep 2015). Bellamak likens this to the case of Kim Davis, county clerk of Rowan …Read More
University Professor Urges Medical Graduates to show Courage
Professor D Robin Taylor, University of Otago, Graduation Address Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, Mayor, Members of the University Council, academic colleagues, graduating students, family members and friends – tena koutou, tena koutou,tena koutou. It is a great privilege to have been asked to give this graduation address. It is a special occasion for you as graduates, because today is a wonderful milestone in your lives either as a newly fledged doctor …Read More