Premier Alison Redford of Alberta’s Conservative government has criticized the opposition Wildrose Party for its support of “conscience rights of health-care professionals.” Redford said that doctors should be forced to commit abortions and prescribe contraception even if it goes against their beliefs and that requiring professionals to provide professional services to everyone was a matter of respecting “diversity.” Early polls for the April 23 showed the Conservatives, who have governed the province for 41 years, trailing the Wildrose Party.
Media asked Wildrose leader Danielle Smith if conscience rights would allow marriage commissioners to refuse to conduct a same-sex marriages. Smith repeated her party’s policy of replacing the Alberta Human Rights Commission with a Human Rights Division of the provincial court so that such questions would be decided by “real courts and real lawyers with real rules of evidence.”
See an April 10 blog on this issue by Peter Stockland of the Christian think tank Cardus.