In Canada, two bioethicists have proposed that doctors be forced to perform abortions in hospital even if it's against their will, triggering a howl of protests from pro-life advocates who called the proposal "ridiculous."
Bioethicists Udo Schuklenk from Queen's University and Julian Savulescu from Oxford University recently proposed that doctors be stripped of their rights to refuse performing abortion procedures on patients who ask for them.
"Doctors must put patients' interests ahead of their own integrity. If this leads to feelings of guilty remorse or them dropping out of the profession, so be it," the academics said in an article published in "Bioethics," as quoted by Life Site News.
The researchers added that this will not result in fewer doctors, since many students seek to become medical practitioners. They also said that medical schools should not accept students who will make decisions based on moral grounds once they become doctors.
Pro-life advocate Alex Schadenberg, however, opposed these suggestions, maintaining that Canada's Constitution "recognises conscience rights."
"Someone can go up, put in their order and they can get what they want. But to me that's a ridiculous situation. Human beings should never be treated like computers, nor are they like that," Schadenberg told Life Site News.
Christian Elia, executive director of the Catholic Civil Rights League, also did not agree with the bioethicists' proposal, saying medical practitioners should never be forced to violate their own conscience.
"Does anybody truly believe that the overall practice of medicine would somehow be enriched if the only practitioners were technocrats who had no moral compass, no sense of reasoning, no conscience, and did not even consider it important or not to act with integrity?" Elia said.
He added that different views in the field of medicine should be respected, even the belief that abortion is not a necessary medical procedure.
