Strangely, the Association seems to put a lot of store in an on-line poll it inflicted on its members, where only 29% of those who responded said that they were willing to provide assisted dying to eligible patients while 63% objected. I'm surprised the Association's staff would have even mentioned this survey. It's troubled by obvious ( and quite deadly, pardon the pun) methodological problems that renders it useless.
The Associations Vice President Professional Affairs, Dr Jeff Blackmer produced a 34 slide presentation titled (no doubt to the horror of most living medical ethicists) 'End-of-Life Care in Canada: A Principles Based Approach to Assisted Dying'. There will be only few people left in bioethics who have not come to realize that the much celebrated principles approach to medical ethics guarantees arbitrary recommendations and outcomes. The principles approach is neither action guiding nor action justifying, it's useless as a tool of ethical or policy analysis and justification. Blackmer decided to add random other principles to the Georgetown Mantra, including vacuous nice sounding stuff like the 'dignity of life' (yes, really, he did!). We spent a fair amount of time in our Royal Society of Canada Report on the subject matter dissecting this particular issue.
After delivering to his audience this hotchpotch of principles, there's an unconnected slide with recommendations, followed by 8 or 9 slides reporting the results of the CMA's on-line poll. Blackmer reports that of about 80 000 doctors in Canada about 1400 clicked their way thru the on-line poll. At a minimum the negligible turnout suggests that most doctors in Canada didn't care to complete a survey that they probably realized ultimately tells us nothing about Canadian doctors' views on assisted dying. The reason for this is methodological. These kinds of surveys may or may not be representative, we just cannot know, because the survey participants may or may not be representative. If anything we should be suspicious of these results, because no professional survey organisations ensured that the sample was actually representative. Those who feel strongly about the subject matter - physicians opposed to it - will fire up their supporters to reject assisted dying and proclaim no collaboration.
Other surveys, including one reported in our above mentioned report, suggest significantly higher levels of support. It is all the more disheartening that a seasoned journalist like the Globe and Mail's Andre Picard takes the 29% figure at face value in his twitter reporting of the Blackmer presentation. (See the image above.) Doing that permits the anti-choice activists to feel good about their campaign strategy, their encouraging their like-minded doctor supporters to click thru the survey would pay off if people fell for this nonsense. I left a slightly more polite comment to this account under Blackmer's public slide presentation, but it was quickly deleted. Go figure.
The CMA recognizes that we will be getting assisted dying in some form or shape (determined by the criteria set out in the Supreme Court of Canada judgment on this subject) and that a small number of its members will be called upon to provide assisted dying services to their patients. The Association is rightly concerned about ensuring patient access while protecting its objecting members' conscience choices. There is a precedent for this. Abortion. Objecting doctors will be obliged to transfer their patients to a colleague they know will oblige them, without unreasonable delay. The CMA is apparently supportive of this compromise.
The train toward assisted dying in Canada has departed but hasn't reached its destination yet.
