McInerney v. MacDonald [1992] 2 S.C.R. 138 held, in the absence of legislation, a patient is entitled, upon request, to examine and copy all information in her medical records which the physician considered in administering advice or treatment, including records prepared by other doctors that the physician may have received.
The physician-patient relationship is fiduciary in nature and certain duties arise from that special relationship of trust and confidence. These include the duties of the doctor to act with utmost good faith and loyalty, to hold information received from or about a patient in confidence, and to make proper disclosure of information to the patient.
The doctor also has an obligation to grant access to the information used in administering treatment. This fiduciary duty is ultimately grounded in the nature of the patient's interest in the medical records.
Information about oneself revealed to a doctor acting in a professional capacity remains, in a fundamental sense, one's own. While the doctor is the owner of the actual record, the information is held in a fashion somewhat akin to a trust and is to be used by the physician for the benefit of the patient.
The confiding of the information to the physician for medical purposes gives rise to an expectation that the patient's interest in and control of the information will continue. The trust-like "beneficial interest" of the patient in the information indicates that, as a general rule, she should have a right of access to the information and that the physician should have a corresponding obligation to provide it.
More generally, unless the State asserts an interest in the fetus, or the fetus is seen as having legal standing beyond the mother, how is the basis of the mother's choice a relevant consideration in restricting the choice?
That said, the whole situation seems odd.
Health News - The Globe and Mail http://bit.ly/xmQLsE
1 comment:
I don't know where to start.
It is not strictly "a legal matter".It is a health matter and an ethical matter.
Surely your not suggesting that you are in support of the practice of aborting fetuses based solely on gender?
Even if you support it from a legal standpoint doesn't mean that this should be fully funded by the taxpayer.
Perhaps a loophole would be to argue that determining the sex of the fetus can never be certain until xx weeks and therefore this information should not be passed on until such date.
It is curious to me that some commentators called Canada an international embarrassment last week over the weird SSM case last week but are silent on Canada's stance on fully funded gender selective abortion. It is even becoming a "tourism" industry.
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