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Exceptionally bad tunnel vision accounts for the suggestion by the chairman of the working group and the president of the College that doctors opposed to abortion can avoid compromising their beliefs by sending patients with unwanted pregnancies to abortion clinics.

But there is yet no satisfactory explanation for the policy’s central message: that ethical medical practice requires physicians to do what they believe to be unethical. Even the worst imaginable case of tunnel vision cannot account for that kind of incoherent authoritarianism.

The working group failed to provide any evidence that the suppression of fundamental freedoms entailed by professional obligations and human rights was justified, and that no less restrictive means were available to achieve the legitimate objectives of the College. Despite this — and without seriously considering any of the foregoing questions — College Council approved the policy. If this is not the best possible example of blind faith by institutional decision makers, it will do until a better one comes along.

Having failed to consider these questions before approving Professional Obligations and Human Rights, it appears that College Council will soon have the opportunity to consider them again. Indeed, the Council may be compelled to answer them — not in the closely controlled and congenial environment of its own offices, but in open court during a lawsuit launched by the Christian Medical Dental Society. That will likely be the beginning of a long trek to the Supreme Court of Canada, one that could have been avoided had College Council properly discharged its responsibilities.

Certainly, the College is obliged “to protect and serve the public interest.” But the public interest is served by civility, restraint, tolerance, accommodation of divergent views and respect for fundamental freedoms. That requires broad-mindedness and evidence-based decision-making, not tunnel vision and blind faith

National Post

Sean Murphy is administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project.