CLC Blog

January 3, 2024 (Campaign Life Coalition) – Alberta’s regulatory college for medical doctors has drawn up plans in an attempt to force doctors and other healthcare workers to participate in evils such as abortion and assisted suicide (MAiD).

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) is proposing an update to its Standards of Practice that would force pro-life doctors, who want nothing to do with killing preborn babies by abortion or killing the sick, the elderly, and soon those with mental illness by assisted suicide, to participate in these evils by actively referring the patient who requested the service to someone else who will provide it.

The CPSA’s proposed update to its Standards states that doctors must “proactively maintain an effective referral plan for the frequently requested services they are unwilling to provide.” Moreover, the proposed update adds that doctors “must not... expose patients to adverse clinical outcomes due to a delayed effective referral.”

This means that if the CPSA has its way, then doctors who practice medicine according to the Hippocratic oath of doing “no harm” to those in their care and who, as a consequence, conscientiously object to any practice or procedure that causes the death of their patient will be forced to violate their conscience or face disciplinary actions and even give up their practice.

Forcing a doctor to make an “effective referral plan” is forcing them to participate in the evil. It is, in essence, to hand over the patient to someone else who will be the patient’s hitman or assassin.

Doctors who follow the Hippocratic oath pledge that they “will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.” Making an “effective referral” is to advise and go along with such a plan.

This change may also require doctors to violate their consciences by having to provide an effective referral for sexually-confused patients who request puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, sex change mutilation surgery or transgenderism-affirming psychiatric counselling. 

The CPSA proposal is simply outrageous and must be stopped.

The CPSA is seeking feedback on its proposed Standards change. Anyone living in Alberta can respond, including CPSA regulated members, partner organizations, other healthcare professionals, and any Albertan resident.

Feedback can be submitted from the CPSA website until January 15, 2024. Submit feedback to the CPSA on its ‘effective referral’ proposal by clicking here and scrolling to the section called "We want to hear from you!". 

The Alberta Committee for Conscience Protection (ACCP), representing physicians in the province who adhere to the time-tested Hippocratic standards of medicine, has come out strongly against the proposal. It is encouraging its members to contact the CPSA and strongly oppose the proposal.

“We are hoping that we can send a clear message to the CPSA Council that the introduction of the term ‘effective referral’ that was added to the draft policy is not acceptable to many physicians and concerned members of the public,” the ACCP stated in a communication to members.

The Canadian Physicians for Life (CPL) has also come out strongly against the proposal and is encouraging its members to oppose it. “We encourage you to write to the CPSA Council indicating that you oppose the compulsion of ‘effective referral’ in this policy. Alberta already has a solid framework for patients to access services they are looking for without mandating that doctors violate their professional judgment,” CPL Executive Director Nicole Scheidl wrote in a January 2 email to supporters.

The two doctors’ groups are not underestimating the situation. If doctors of conscience who practice the Hippocratic oath are forced to flee Alberta’s medical scene if this proposal passes, then all the province will be left with are doctors who have no problem with killing their patients. The healthcare system must not be left to the killers.

The future of Alberta’s healthcare system hangs in the balance with this proposal.