Bill 207 would limit patient access to abortion

Doctors could refuse to treat patients with no consequences if it offends conscience

There seems to be an airborne virus that threatens premiers. For Jason Kenney, chartering a plane for $16,764 to fly some friendly premiers to Saskatoon is inexplicably foolish.

Now, this is nothing like ex-premier Alison Redford’s “ghost riders in the sky,” the technique of booking non-existent passengers on a government plane, leaving the legroom to herself and her entourage.

Air Kenney’s passengers do appear to be real rather than ghostly. The excuse — Stampede hospitality plus government business — is at least defensible.

But still, the optics of chartering a plane when you’ve just dropped the most difficult cost-cutting budget in a generation are horrible.

The episode masked a much more consequential matter this week — the introduction of Bill 207, called the “Conscience Rights (Health Care Providers Protection Act.)”

It might seem innocuous at first, but this bill is a significant backdoor effort to limit patient access to abortion, all in the name of conscience.

The private member’s bill, sponsored by Peace River

UCP MLA Dan Williams, will be debated and quite possibly passed.

It provides immunity from complaint or discipline to health providers that refuse to deal with patients whose needs offend their conscience.

The bill never uses the word abortion, which makes it potentially wide-reaching. Conscience rights could also be expanded to help for LGBTQ people and assisted death.

None of this should come as a surprise. Kenney has always said he will not interfere with the abortion service. But there’s a twist that suggests something like Bill 207 was inevitable if the UCP won the election.

Asked about abortion access last Feb. 12, Kenney said:

“Amongst the so-called social conservatives I know in the party, they’re not talking about that issue. They just want the government to leave them alone when it comes to certain constitutionally protected freedoms of conscience and religion.”

But Bill 207 wouldn’t just leave these health providers alone. It would expand their right to impose their conscience on patients while making them immune from criticism.

First, it would require any health regulatory body that receives a complaint about a doctor’s refusal to “immediately dismiss the complaint.”

Further, any objection to a decision based on conscience could not even be recognized as a complaint or grounds for complaint. Nor could the doctor’s behaviour be regarded as unprofessional conduct.

Health providers would also be immune from lawsuit for any decision “based on their conscientious beliefs.”

While eliminating the ability to question a health provider, the bill also extends the grounds for refusing service from simply “religious beliefs” to include “conscientious beliefs.”

One of the biggest issues for these conscience health providers is whether, in denying service, they are obliged to refer a patient to someone who will provide the service.

Many were alarmed by an Ontario court decision in May which required physicians to make an “effective” referral to a willing health-care provider.

Bill 207 skirts the issue.

It says: “For greater certainty, nothing in this Act derogates from a health care provider’s or religious health care organization’s obligations to their patients, which may include informing individuals of options in respect of receiving a health care service.”

Note the word “may.” The bill does not concede that physicians have a duty to refer patients.

MLA Williams didn’t just write this bill on the back of a napkin. He cites wide consultation as well as significant medical and legal support for his view.

Williams says, “Let me be clear, this bill not only protects freedom of conscience, but it also in no way limits access to health services in the province.”

But it’s hard to see how, if doctors have total discretion to exercise and define conscience, it would not have some impact on access.

Many UCP MLAS — maybe more than one-third — are against abortion. Anti-abortion groups aggressively recruited and funded their campaigns for UCP nominations.

It worked. “The nominations have gone very well for the prolife movement,” said a February note over the name of Cameron Wilson, director of political action for the Wilberforce Project.

“However, as always, we now need to keep the candidates who won their nominations accountable and on track to enacting pro-life policy should they win in the general election.”

Kenney, himself an abortion opponent, has always said he learned a lesson from ex-prime minister Stephen Harper — don’t re-legislate contentious matters that are already fixed in law.

Well then, the premier should vote against Bill 207.

This is not just a minor guarantee of conscience rights.

It broadens the conscience power significantly. It offers protections to doctors exercising that power, without ever mentioning patients.

And that’s not a small matter, no matter how the UCP tries to pitch it.

As always, we now need to keep the candidates who won their nominations accountable and on track to enacting pro-life policy.

LARRY WONG Premier Jason Kenney has always said he will not interfere with the abortion service. But there’s a twist that suggests something like Bill 207 was inevitable if the UCP won the election, writes Don Braid.