Harper Government Has Angered the CMA

Remember this?

That scene, a physician disrupting a CPC government event or interrupting a Harper Cabinet Minister, occured several times as Bill C-31 with provisions that reduce the quality of healthcare that refugees could receive when in medical crisis, is challenged.

The Canadian Medical Association's annual general council meeting is currently being held in Yellowknife. Yesterday it passed this motion.

[...] delegates called on the federal government to reject attempts by a Conservative backbench MP to amend the Criminal Code [...]

“This constitutes the criminalization of abortion or any form of contraception,” said Dr. Geneviève Desbiens, a urologist from Valleyfield, Que.

“This change could even prevent a pregnant woman from travelling or taking certain drug treatments,” she said.

Dr. Desbiens also warned that doctors who counsel or provide abortion services could become criminals.

Currently, subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code states that a fetus “becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother…”

Stephen Woodworth, a Conservative MP from Kitchener-Centre has tabled a private member’s bill to have the part of the Code changed. Motion M-312 is slated to go to a vote in Parliament this fall.

The CMA, which represents the country’s 76,000 physicians, interns, residents and medical students, has a policy saying that abortion is an ethically acceptable medical practice as long as the fetus is not viable.

Dr. Robin Saunders, a family physician from Sooke, B.C., and chair of the group’s ethics committee said M-312 is a “backdoor path to enacting restrictions on abortion.” The CMA has a long history of supporting free choice.

The CMA has called as well for

a full diagnosis of the health and environmental effects of natural resource development — particularly in Alberta’s oilsands — as a national debate continues to rage over energy issues.

Delegates to the Canadian Medical Association’s annual general council meeting overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution asking for public and timely access to all government and industry data on the potential human health effects of “natural resource extraction projects.”

Physicians also backed a call for better monitoring of the environmental and health impacts of such initiatives.

Whether there is any effect from the oilsands is unclear, but the issue has become “a hugely emotional and highly politicized” one, Yellowknife physician Dr. Ewan Affleck said Wednesday.

“When our patients come to us and say, ‘Everyone in our community is getting cancer and we’re scared,’ we’re not sure what to answer,” Affleck said. “Maybe they’re right, maybe they’re wrong. There hasn’t been clarity.

“All we’re asking for — it’s not a blameworthy thing — is our hope to just have data in order to provide effective care to our patients, because it’s unclear whether there is a health effect.”

Members of the Harper government have also been singled for scrutiny on public health issues: Kenney - as mentioned and MP Kellie Leitch for her support of asbestos export.