Our principles are based on the life-affirming Hippocratic Oath. CPL is open to all doctors and students who share the following:

  • Reverence for every human life, regardless of age or infirmity, lies at the root of all medical tradition
  • Recognition that the long and honourable ethical tradition of medical sciences through the ages has been expressed and protected by the oath Hippocrates
  • Conviction that human life begins at fertilization and a recognition that to cause the death of a human being directly, at any stage in life, because of physical or mental disabilities, or for social, economic, ecological or eugenic reasons, is a gross injustice to the person, degrading to humanity, and contradictory to the role of the physician
  • Understanding that there are two patients in every pregnancy. The physician bears the medical responsibility for the lives of both the mother and her developing child
  • Belief that it must be the goal of medical science and its practitioners to preserve and protect human life, to relieve suffering and to promote healing
  • Reverence for every human life, regardless of age or infirmity, lies at the root of all medical tradition

Canadian Physicians For Life – Care, Compassion and Life