Autonomy and Consent
Respect for patient autonomy and informed consent must remain at the center of all neural implant technologies.
The right to refuse treatment is a fundamental principle of Canadian healthcare. Patients must retain the ability to refuse implantation, deactivate a device , decline software updates, or reject substantial modifications to their treatment, without facing undue pressure or coercion.
The neural implant should not operate in a way to a patient’s decision making in regards to personal life choices and choices about their health care. Liberty is a guaranteed in regards to personal life choices is right enshrined in the Canadian Charter, and it should be interpreted to include making decisions free of external input from brain-computer interfaces.
Our Demands
- Patients have a right to refuse to start or continue a treatment at any point in the process.
- Brain-Computer interfaces should not operate in a way that reduces the patient’s ability to make their own decisions. That is that they should not reduce the patient’s liberty, and in cases where input to the patient’s brain is necessary, it should minimize and effect on liberty,
- Key medical functions of the BCI can not be tied to ancillary functions in regards to the BCI’s interaction with the patient’s brain.