Fundamental Disability Rights Case Goes to Supreme Court of Canada

On Tuesday May 17th the Supreme Court of Canada will be asked to consider whether people with intellectual disabilities should be allowed to testify in court.  Specifically, the question before the Court is whether people with intellectual disabilities are required to demonstrate an understanding of the concept of a “promise to tell the truth” in order to be permitted to testify.

On Tuesday May 17th the Supreme Court of Canada will be asked to consider whether people with intellectual disabilities should be allowed to testify in court.  Specifically, the question before the Court is whether people with intellectual disabilities are required to demonstrate an understanding of the concept of a “promise to tell the truth” in order to be permitted to testify.

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Dr. Diekema’s official view of “surgical risks” and its contradiction to his justification of the Ashley case and the HCR article by the growth attenuation WG

Dr. Diekema attested as a qualified doctor in a case of botched circumcision in the superior court of Washington in January 2006. What he said there is quite interesting when we think of his Ashley case justification. I find his views of “surgical risks” and “pediatrician’s moral and ethical responsibilities to analyze risk vs. benefit independent of parents’ desire” totally relevant to the “Ashley treatment” debate.

http://www.circumstitions.com/ethics-diekema.html

For example, he says, “Non-therapeutic procedures that involve excessive risk should be avoided. An appendectomy on a healthy child, who has no history or symptoms of an appendicitis and who is not undergoing an abdominal surgery for other therapeutic reasons, for instance, would not be ethically justifiable because the absence of benefit to the child would not justify the surgical risks.”