Canadians in suffering earned the right to an assisted death in June, but too many barriers remain in the way.

Last week, news broke that a dying Vancouver man was denied a peaceful assisted death at St Paul's Hospital and was required to endure a brutal patient transfer to Vancouver General to fufil his constitutional right.

This happened because our government allows entire publicly-funded hospitals to decide a patient's treatment based on the will of a few Bishops instead of the wishes of that patient.

While Ian Schearer was ultimately able to see his choice respected at VGH, not everyone will have that chance. BC spends around $1 billion on religious healthcare institutions and in some communities, a person's only choice is a religious hospital.

To challenge this threat to access, Dying With Dignity Canada has launched a new tool to ask the Government of BC to respect patients' rights.

Please use their tool to send an email today.

And make sure to tell Premier Christy Clark that over 70% of British Columbians oppose publicly-funded healthcare institutions being able to refuse to provide treatments on religious grounds.

Catholic hospitals aren't the only threat to access however.

Bill C-14 was the government's response to the Supreme Court of Canada's unanimous Carter decision. That ruling said that medial assistance in dying should be available to competent, consenting adults with "a grievous and irremediable medical condition that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual." Yet Bill C-14 callously restricted access to those whose natural deaths are "reasonably foreseeable."

Now, a new e-petition is calling on the federal government to remove that restriction.

Sign the petition 

Update (Oct 7, 2016): See below for our letter in today's edition of The Province.

The front page story of The Province today covered Byron Wood's human rights complaint over being forced to attend Alcoholics Anonymous over secular alternatives.

Wood told The Province:

If I questioned the 12-step philosophy or tried to discuss scientific explanations and treatments for addiction, I was labelled as ‘in denial’. I was told to admit that I am powerless, and to submit to a higher power. It was unhelpful and humiliating.

There was a mentality among staff that addiction is a moral failing in need of salvation. We were encouraged to pray.

Our group has existed in one shape or another since 1982 and since 1990 we've gone by the name British Columbia Humanist Association.

That said, like many "BC" organizations, we are likely guilty of spending much of our focus on Metro Vancouver to the exclusion of the rest of the province.

In an effort to address this concern, your Board of Directors has created a survey to collect your feedback on whether we're adequately serving your needs.

We'll collect these responses over the next few weeks and use them to inform and build upon our ongoing work.

So please take a couple minutes and let us know what you think.

Today is International Blasphemy Rights Day – a day to remember the publishing of the Danish Mohammed cartoons ten years ago that sparked several violent protests across the world.

It’s still an important day for advocates for freedom of expression as people are still being imprisoned and murdered for criticizing beliefs and art critical of religion is still being censored. And blasphemy is still a crime in Canada.

This is why we were very proud to see the City of Victoria support our proclamation recognizing the day.

Photo credit: Sarah Hayes

Yesterday, an atheist writer was gunned down on the courthouse steps in the capital of Jordan.

He was set to stand trial for offending Islam by sharing a comic satirizing Mohammed on his Facebook page. The suspected shooter, a local imam and extremist, was allegedly motivated by anger over the blasphemous cartoon.

Meanwhile, a new film by atheist Louis Theroux critical of Scientology will not be shown in Ireland because publishers are afraid they'll be sued under the country's new libel laws that include "blasphemous matter."

These two cases highlight the continued relevance and importance of events like Banned Books Week (this week) and International Blasphemy Rights Day, which is September 30.

It is also why it was so encouraging to learn last week that the City of Victoria had agreed to proclaim International Blasphemy Rights Day. Although that proclamation only came after some debate, further highlighting how precarious our right to free speech is, even here in Canada.

While we don't have any festivities planned for either event this year, I do strongly encourage you to sign the e-petition calling on the federal government to repeal Canada's blasphemy law and to make sure you share that with as many people as you can.

Editor's note: This editorial was originally published in the journal Bioethics under a Creative Commons license. It's a follow up to an article first published by Udo Schuklenk in May 2015 and responded to by Christopher Cowley in December 2015. Unfortunately, both of those articles are behind paywalls.

The debate is over whether doctors should be able to refuse to provide certain legal medical procedures, such as medical assistance in dying or abortions. Schuklenk argues that the rights of patients and a doctors' professional obligations should outweigh any individual moral attitudes. The BC Humanist Association made a similar (albeit significantly more abridged) argument in our submission to the Parliamentary committee that studied medical assistance in dying earlier this year.

By Julian Savulescu and Udo Schuklenk

Abstract

In an article in this journal, Christopher Cowley argues that we have ‘misunderstood the special nature of medicine, and have misunderstood the motivations of the conscientious objectors’.1 We have not. It is Cowley who has misunderstood the role of personal values in the profession of medicine. We argue that there should be better protections for patients from doctors' personal values and there should be more severe restrictions on the right to conscientious objection, particularly in relation to assisted dying. We argue that eligible patients could be guaranteed access to medical services that are subject to conscientious objections by: (1) removing a right to conscientious objection; (2) selecting candidates into relevant medical specialities or general practice who do not have objections; (3) demonopolizing the provision of these services away from the medical profession.

At its council meeting yesterday, the City of Victoria agreed 3-2 to proclaim September 30, 2016 as International Blasphemy Rights Day.

The BC Humanist Association requested the proclamation as part of its support for freedom of expression; however, the council did amend the proclamation to remove a section challenging the constitutionality of the Criminal Code prohibition on blasphemous libel.

Ian Bushfield, Executive Director, BC Humanist Association:

Nearly every week, from around the world we hear about another person sentenced to jail or even death for writing or saying something that someone considers blasphemous. Proclamations, like this one from the City of Victoria, are an invaluable way to send a message that Canadians are willing to stand behind the right to freedom of speech and the council should be commended for their courage. However, the fact that councillors had to debate this proclamation goes to show just how controversial free speech can be.

The Government of BC rejected a similar proclamation request, citing the fact the Criminal Code was under federal jurisdiction.

In June, the BC Humanist Association helped launch an official e-petition calling on the federal government to repeal Canada’s prohibition on blasphemous libel. Since then, the petition has received over 4600 signatures, including nearly 1000 from British Columbians. The petition closes for signatures on October 20, at which point the government will have 45 days to provide an official response.

International Blasphemy Rights Day is held every September 30 to commemorate the publishing of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons, which resulted in some religious believers around the world expressing their disapproval with violent protests, riots and in some cases, murder. The day was started in 2009 by the US Center for Inquiry as part of its Campaign for Free Expression.

The full proclamation is below. The deleted section of the proclamation said:

Section 296 of Canada’s Criminal Code (blasphemous libel), though latent, violates the fundamental rights of citizens with opinions different than that of the majority;

Watch the council meeting (debate starts at 10:00)

Sign the e-petition.

Read 10 years of speaking out against Canada's blasphemy law.

Banner image: Councillor Ben Isitt speaks in favour of proclaiming International Blasphemy Rights Day.

Our education system is tasked with preparing the next generation for life in an increasingly pluralistic country. That system must be accommodating and welcoming to students of all faiths and none, or we risk segmenting our society and allowing extremism to foment.

Bowen Island Montessori School is facing a human rights complaint for demanding a couple sign a letter indicating their full acceptance of the school’s cultural programing before their daughter would be permitted to attend. The couple argues they were the only ones required to sign such a letter in order to register their child after they raised concerns about the school’s focus on Christian celebrations and other aspects of the curriculum that conflicted with their secular, non-materialist and pacifist views. The complaint will be heard in mid-2017.

While human rights law in Canada generally exempts religious organizations (a separate question), this school describes itself as non-denominational or secular. Specifically, it says its approach is to have “no distinction of culture.”

But secularism requires neutrality. A secular organization can no more suppress the views of religious students as it can push a Christian worldview.

Last week, we shared our letter to BC's Minister of Education asking if he'd stand up for LGBTQ rights in BC schools.

On Thursday we got our answer: All public and independent schools will be required to explicitly include sexual orientation and gender identity in their anti-bullying policies.

This is a good first sign but we'll have to see the details to know whether the rights of LGBTQ students will be upheld.

By Travis N. Rieder, Johns Hopkins University

Earlier this summer, I found myself in the middle of a lively debate because of my work on climate change and the ethics of having children.

NPR correspondent Jennifer Ludden profiled some of my work in procreative ethics with an article entitled, “Should we be having kids in the age of climate change?,” which summarized my published views that we ought to consider adopting a “small family ethic” and even pursuing fertility reduction efforts in response to the threat from climate change. Although environmentalists for decades have worried about overpopulation for many good reasons, I suggest the fast-upcoming thresholds in climate change provide uniquely powerful reasons to consider taking real action to slow population growth.

Clearly, this idea struck a nerve: I was overwhelmed by the response in my personal email inbox as well as op-eds in other media outlets and over 70,000 shares on Facebook. I am gratified that so many people took the time to read and reflect on the piece.

Having read and digested that discussion, I want to continue it by responding to some of the most vocal criticisms of my own work, which includes research on “population engineering” – the intentional manipulation of human population size and structure – I’ve done with my colleagues, Jake Earl and Colin Hickey.

In short, the varied arguments against my views – that I’m overreacting, that the economy will tank and others – haven’t changed my conviction that we need to discuss the ethics of having children in this era of climate change.