A defense of conscientious objection: Why health is integral to the permissibility of medical refusals.
Bioethics
; 36(1): 54-62, 2022 01.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34599825
ABSTRACT
Schuklenk, Smalling, and Savulescu put forth four conditions that delineate when conscientious objection is impermissible. Roughly, they argue for the following claim:
if some practice is legal, standard, expected of a profession, and in the patient's interest, then medical professionals cannot refuse to perform the practice. In this essay, I argue that these conditions are not jointly sufficient to deny medical professionals the ability to refuse to perform procedures that detract from a patient's health. They are insufficient to bar medical refusals to perform certain practices because, even when these conditions are met, non-health conducive practices would not be open to refusal by the physician. I provide an example of a non-health conducive practice female genital mutilation, which meets all of the proposed conditions but, intuitively, should be open to medical refusals. As a result, I conclude that the proposed conditions are insufficient to determine when conscientious objection is impermissible. I then offer an amendment to their position by suggesting that a practice, in addition to the other four conditions, must also be health conducive in order to remove the medical professional's ability to refuse to perform the practice.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Médicos
/
Consciência
Limite:
Female
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Bioethics
Assunto da revista:
ETICA
Ano de publicação:
2022
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos