Ethical Misconduct by Abuse of Conscientious Objection Laws

Medicine and Law, Vol. 25, pp. 513-522, 2006

10 Pages Posted: 23 Aug 2010

See all articles by Bernard Dickens

Bernard Dickens

University of Toronto - Faculty of Law

Date Written: 2006

Abstract

This paper addresses laws and practices urged by conservative religious organizations that invoke conscientious objection in order to deny patients access to lawful procedures. Many are reproductive health services, such as contraception, sterilization and abortion, on which women’s health depends. Religious institutions that historically served a mission to provide healthcare are now perverting this commitment in order to deny care. Physicians who followed their calling honourably in a spirit of self-sacrifice are being urged to sacrifice patients’ interests to promote their own, compromising their professional ethics by conflict of interest.

The shield tolerant societies allowed to protect religious conscience is abused by religiously-influenced agencies that beat it into a sword to compel patients, particularly women, to comply with religious values they do not share. This is unethical unless accompanied by objectors’ duty of referral to non-objecting practitioners, and governmental responsibility to ensure supply of and patients' access to such practitioners.

Keywords: conscientious objection, ethics, ethical misconduct, duty to refer, civil disobedience, professional ethics

Suggested Citation

Dickens, Bernard, Ethical Misconduct by Abuse of Conscientious Objection Laws (2006). Medicine and Law, Vol. 25, pp. 513-522, 2006, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1662805

Bernard Dickens (Contact Author)

University of Toronto - Faculty of Law ( email )

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