The debate regarding the role of conscientious objection in healthcare has been protracted, with increasing demands for curbs on conscientious objection. There is a growing body of evidence that indicates that in some cases, high rates of conscientious objection can affect access to legal medical services such as abortion—a major concern of critics of conscientious objection. Moreover, few solutions have been put forward that aim to satisfy both this concern and that of defenders of conscientious objection—being expected to participate in (...) the provision of services that compromise their moral integrity. Here we attempt to bring some resolution to the debate by proposing a pragmatic, long-term solution offering what we believe to be an acceptable compromise—a quota system for medical trainees in specialties where a conscientious objection can be exercised, and is known to cause conflict. We envisage two main objectives of the quota system we propose. First, as a means to introduce conscientious objection into countries where this is not presently permitted. Second, to minimise or eliminate the effects of high rates of conscientious objection in countries such as Italy, where access to legal abortion provision can be negatively affected. (shrink)

The longstanding dominant view is that health care practitioners should be permitted to refrain from participating in medical interventions when they have a conscientious objection to doing so in a broad range of cases. In recent years, a growing minority have been fervently advocating a sea change. In their view, medical professionals should not be permitted to refuse to participate in medical interventions merely because doing so conflicts with their own moral or religious views. One of the most commonly offered (...) arguments in support of this position focuses on the fact that health care practitioners knew what they were getting into when they voluntarily chose to take on their professional roles; nobody forced them to do this. I will argue that, despite its popularity among opponents of conscientious refusal, this argument from voluntariness fails to provide us with a good reason to reject broad accommodationism in favour of non-accommodationism. No data are available. NA. (shrink)

In complex, pluralistic societies, different views concerning the moral duties of healthcare professionals inevitably exist: according to some accounts, doctors can and should cooperate in performing abortion or physician-assisted suicide, while according to others they should always defend human life and protect their patients’ health. It is argued that the very plurality of responses presently given to questions such as these provides a liberal argument in favour of conscientious objection, as an attempt to deal with moral diversity by protecting both (...) the professionals’ claim to moral integrity and the patients’ claim to receive lawful and safe medical treatments. A moderate view on CO is defended, according to which none of these claims can be credited with unconditional value. Claims to CO by healthcare professionals can be justified but must be subjected to a reasonableness standard. Both the incompatibility of CO with the medical profession and its unconditional sanctioning by conscience absolutism are therefore rejected. The paper contributes to the definition of the conditions of such reasonableness, particularly by stressing the role played by conceptions of good medicine in discriminating claims to CO; it is argued that respecting these conditions prevents from having the negative consequences dreaded by critics. The objection according to which accepting the physician’s duty to inform and refer is inconsistent with the professed value of moral integrity is also discussed. (shrink)

The availability of willing providers of medical assistance in dying in Canada has been an issue since a Canadian Supreme Court decision and the subsequent passing of federal legislation, Bill C14, decriminalised MAiD in 2016. Following this legislation, Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario, Canada, created a team to support access to MAiD for patients. This research used a qualitative, mixed methods approach to data collection, obtaining the narratives of providers and supporters of MAiD practice at HHS. This study occurred at (...) the outset of MAiD practice in 2016, and 1 year later, once MAiD practice was established. Our study reveals that professional identity and values, personal identity and values, experience with death and dying, and organisation context are the most significant contributors to conscientious participation for MAiD providers and supporters. The stories of study participants were used to create a model that provides a framework for values clarification around MAiD practice, and can be used to explore beliefs and reasoning around participation in MAiD across the moral spectrum. This research addresses a significant gap in the literature by advancing our understanding of factors that influence participation in taboo clinical practices. It may be applied practically to help promote reflective practice regarding complex and controversial areas of medicine, to improve interprofessional engagement in MAiD practice and promote the conditions necessary to support moral diversity in our institutions. (shrink)

Ritual circumcision of infant boys is controversial in Norway, as in many other countries. The procedure became a part of Norwegian public health services in 2015. A new law opened for conscientious objection to the procedure. We have studied physicians’ refusals to perform ritual circumcision as an issue of professional ethics. Qualitative interview study with 10 urologists who refused to perform ritual circumcision from six Norwegian public hospitals. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, then analysed with systematic text condensation, a qualitative (...) analysis framework. The physicians are unanimous in grounding their opposition to the procedure in professional standards and norms, based on fundamental tenets of professional ethics. While there is homogeneity in the group when it comes to this reasoning, there are significant variations as to how deeply the matter touches the urologists on a personal level. About half of them connect their stance to their personal integrity, and state that performing the procedure would go against their conscience and lead to pangs of conscience. It is argued that professional moral norms sometimes might become more or less ‘integrated’ in the professional’s core moral values and moral identity. If this is the case, then the distinction between conscience-based and professional refusals to certain healthcare services cannot be drawn as sharply as it has been. (shrink)

BackgroundIn 2019, the Constitutional Court of South Korea ruled that the anti-abortion provisions in the Criminal Act, which criminalize abortion, do not conform to the Constitution. This decision will lead to a total reversal of doctors’ legal duty from the obligation to refuse abortion services to their requirement to provide them, given the Medical Service Act that states that a doctor may not refuse a request for treatment or assistance in childbirth. I argue, confined to abortion services in Korea that (...) will take place in the near future, that doctors should be granted the legal right to exercise conscientious objection to abortion.Main textConsidering that doctors in Korea have been ethically and legally obligated to refrain from abortions for many years, imposing a universal legal duty to provide abortions that does not allow exception may endanger the moral integrity of individual doctors who chose a career when abortion was illegal. The universal imposition of such a duty may result in repudiation of doctors as moral agents and damage trust in doctors that forms the basis of medical professionalism. Even if conscientious objection to abortion is granted as a legal right, most patients would experience no impediment to receiving abortion services because the healthcare environment of Korea provides options in which patients can choose their doctors based on prior information, there are many doctors who would be willing to provide an abortion, and Korea is a relatively small country. Finally, the responsibility to effectively balance and guarantee the respective rights of the two agents involved in abortion, the doctor and the patient, should be imposed on the government rather than individual doctors. This assertion is based on the government’s past behaviours, the nature of its relationship with doctors, and the capacity it has to satisfy both doctors’ right to conscientious objection and patients’ right to legal medical services.ConclusionWith regard to abortion services that will be sought in the near future, doctors should be granted the legal right to exercise conscientious objection based on the importance of doctor’s moral integrity, lack of impediment to patients, and government responsibility. (shrink)

In 2019, several US states passed “heartbeat” bills. Should such bills go into effect, they would outlaw abortion once an embryonic heartbeat can be detected, thereby severely limiting an individual’s access to abortion. Many states allow health care professionals to refuse to provide an abortion for reasons of conscience. Yet heartbeat bills do not include a positive conscience clause that would allow health care professionals to provide an abortion for reasons of conscience. I argue that this asymmetry is unjustified. The (...) same criteria that justify protecting conscientious refusals to provide abortion also justify protecting positive conscientious appeals regarding abortion. Thus, if the law provides legal exemptions for health care professionals who, as a matter of conscience, refuse to provide abortions where it is legal, it should also provide exemptions for health care professionals who, as a matter of conscience, feel obligated to provide abortions where it is illegal. (shrink)

Recently, debate over whether health care providers should have a protected right to conscientiously refuse to offer legal health care services—such as abortion, elective sterilization, aid in dying, or treatments for transgender patients—has grown exponentially. I advance a modified compromise view that bases respect for claims of conscientious refusal to provide specific health care services on a publicly defensible rationale. This view requires health care providers who refuse such services to disclose their availability by other providers, as well as to (...) arrange for referrals or facilitate transfers of care. This requirement raises the question of whether providers are being forced to be complicit in the provision of services they deem to be morally objectionable. I conclude by showing how this modified compromise view answers the most significant objections mounted by critics of the right to conscientious refusal and safeguards providers from having to offer services that most directly threaten their moral integrity. (shrink)

BackgroundThe public’s attitudes to conscientious objection are likely to influence political decisions about CO and trust towards healthcare systems and providers. Few studies examine the pub...