Religious Freedom Archives - Protection of Conscience Project Library

The religious character of secular arguments supporting euthanasia and what it implies for conscientious practice in medicine

John Tambakis, Lauris Kaldijian, Ewan Goligher

Abstract
Contemporary bioethics generally stipulates that public moral deliberation must avoid allowing religious beliefs to influence or justify health policy and law. Secular premises and arguments are assumed to maintain the neutral, common ground required for moral deliberation in the public square of a pluralistic society. However, a careful examination of non-theistic arguments used to justify euthanasia (regarding contested notions of human dignity, individual autonomy, and death as annihilation) reveals a dependence on metaethical and metaphysical beliefs that are not universally accepted in a pluralistic society. Such beliefs function in non-theistic arguments in the same way that foundational beliefs justify moral convictions in religious frameworks of belief. This parallel is apparent when religious belief is defined broadly (a la John Reeder) as ‘the search for the good in light of the limits and possibilities of the real.’ Seen through this interpretive lens, frameworks comprising Secular foundational commitments function, in ethically relevant respects, like the guiding beliefs found in the comprehensive frameworks of traditional religions. When conscientious practice in healthcare is reconsidered in light of this foundational similarity between the religious and the secular, it is clear that those who object to the foundational beliefs underpinning Secular arguments for euthanasia should not be required to provide, participate in, or refer patients for euthanasia (or other ethically controversial practices similarly dependent on contested frameworks of belief) in pluralistic societies that prize moral freedom as a primary human good.

Tambakis J, Kaldijian L, & Goligher EC. The religious character of secular arguments supporting euthanasia and what it implies for conscientious practice in medicine. Theor Med Bioeth (2022).

Our Inner Guide: Protecting Freedom of Conscience

Cardus

Conscience, though inherently individual, is vital to the common good. Using current case studies from Canada that engage freedom of conscience, this paper offers concrete recommendations as to how this human right can be robustly protected at home and abroad.

Our Inner Guide: Protecting Freedom of Conscience

Executive Summary
Freedom of conscience appears in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and many other bills of rights. Yet, despite its universality, this human right is, by and large, universally neglected by courts, legislatures, and policy-makers.

Today, more so than before, reliance on freedom of conscience implicates the interests and rights of other citizens. Owing to modern phenomena such as globalization, many of us live in deeply diverse, multicultural, and plural societies. These current characteristics of many Western societies inevitably increase the prospect of sharp disagreements between citizens on what is good, right, and true—as well as the need to resolve these disagreements. This paper takes up the challenge of grappling with the clash of interests and rights in these cases.

This paper unpacks what freedom of conscience protects, why it is worth protecting, and when it may—and may not—be limited. For the sake of individual flourishing, peaceful coexistence, and liberal democracy itself, we say that freedom of conscience merits robust protection.

We aim to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of conscience in a liberal democracy and alert Canadians to the pressing need for this human right to be afforded due respect. Using current case studies from Canada that engage freedom of conscience, we offer concrete recommendations as to how this human right can be robustly protected at home and abroad.

History teaches that conscience can instigate fundamental social change, for the better. Conscience not only safeguards core convictions—it also promotes moral growth, for individuals and societies alike. Conscience, though inherently individual, is vital to the common good. To realize societies that are just and equitable, it is safe to say that freedom of conscience is indispensable. It is our intention that this paper will contribute to an essential public discussion on freedom of conscience and how we can better shape our laws, and ourselves, in accordance with this neglected freedom.

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End-of-Life Options Act Fails to Protect Conscience Rights

Andrew S. Kubick

Extract
The New Mexico Senate passed the Elizabeth Whitefield End-of-Life Options Act on March 15 by a vote of twentyfour to seventeen. That vote followed a February vote of thirty-nine to twenty-seven in the lower chamber. Now with the stroke of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s pen, New Mexico has become the ninth state in the United States to enact a physician assisted suicide law. (The practice also is legal in Washington, DC.) The End-of-Life Options Act is incompatible with the moral teachings of Catholicism (along with several other religions). A provider who embraces the Catholic faith will be faced with the following ultimatum: You can either write a prescription for a lethal dose of a sedative or refer the patient to a physician who will then write it, or you can suffer the professional consequences of conscientiously objecting to both of those options. It is clear upon review of the End-of-Life Options Act that it fails to fully protect the conscience rights of providers. . .

Kubick AS. End-of-Life Options Act Fails to Protect Conscience Rights. Ethics & Medics 2021 Jun; 46(6): 1-2.

How should a liberal democracy react to conscientious objection claims

Panel 3: Theological and Religious Perspectives on Conscience

Royal Irish Academy Symposium

Chair:

Mary McAleese, MRIA, Professor of Children, Law and Religion, University of Glasgow

Panellists:

Professor Linda Hogan, Trinity College Dublin
Professor David Albert Jones, The Anscombe Bioethics Centre
Professor David Novak, University of Toronto

Religious and theological conceptions of conscience; role of conscientious objection within faith traditions; freedom of religion, freedom within religion. Resistance motivated by faith and conscience: military service, health care.

Royal Irish Academy: How should a liberal democracy react to conscientious objection claims

Developing Public Policy for Sectarian Providers: Accommodating Religious Beliefs and Obtaining Access to Care

Kathleen M Boozang

Author Extract
The market changes sweeping the U.S. health care industry have a distinctive impact on communities that rely on religiously affiliated health care providers. When a sectarian sponsor subsumes multiple providers, its assertion of religious beliefs can preclude the provision of certain health care services to the entire community. In addition, the sectarian provider’s refusal to offer certain services may violate state certificates of need, licensing, Medicaid managed care, or even professional liability law. This situation challenges both the provider and the state: the provider seeks adherence to religious law, and the state seeks compliance with its law and citizens access to health care.

I propose that the state attempt to ameliorate tensions between civil and religious laws through negotiated accommodation. This concept encourages the sectarian institution to reassess its mission in the current market and to identify alternative avenues of health care delivery that will preserve patients’ access to care without excessively diluting religious identity or beliefs.

Boozang KM. Developing Public Policy for Sectarian Providers: Accommodating Religious Beliefs and Obtaining Access to Care. J Law Med Ethics. 1996;24(2):90-98.

Chilean medical and midwifery faculty’s views on conscientious objection for abortion services

Lidia Casas, Lori Freedman, Alejandra Ramm, Sara Correa, C Finley Baba, M Antonia Biggs

International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health

Abstract
CONTEXT: In 2017, Chile reformed its abortion law to allow the procedure under limited circumstances. Exploring the views of Chilean medical and midwifery faculty regarding abortion and the use of conscientious objection (CO) at the time of reform can inform how these topics are being taught to the country’s future health care providers.

METHODS: Between March and September 2017, 30 medical and midwifery school faculty from universities in Santiago, Chile were interviewed; 20 of the faculty taught at secular universities and 10 taught at religiously affiliated universities. Faculty perspectives on CO and abortion, the scope of CO, and teaching about CO and abortion were analyzed using a grounded theory approach.

RESULTS: Most faculty at secular and religiously affiliated universities supported the rights of clinicians to refuse to provide abortion care. Secular-university faculty generally thought that CO should be limited to specific providers and rejected the idea of institutional CO, whereas religious-university faculty strongly supported the use of CO by a broad range of providers and at the institutional level. Only secular-university faculty endorsed the idea that CO should be regulated so that it does not hinder access to abortion care.

CONCLUSIONS: The broader support for CO in abortion among religious-university faculty raises concerns about whether students are being taught their ethical responsibility to put the needs of their patients above their own. Future research should monitor whether Chile’s CO regulations and practices are guaranteeing people’s access to abortion care..

Casas L, Freedman L, Ramm A, Correa S, Baba CF, Biggs MA. Chilean medical and midwifery faculty’s views on conscientious objection for abortion services. Int Persp Sex Repro Health. 2020;46:25-34.

(Book Review) Religious Exemptions

Jacqueline Lang

Kevin Vallier and Michael Weber (eds). Religious Exemptions. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018, 328 pp. ISBN: 9780190666187

Extract
An exemption from legal requirements is a right to be excluded from specific law that, to all intents and purposes, have general application. A religious exemption broadly, is an exemption on religious or conscientious grounds. Of course, an exemption can function in any positive legal framework and at any time. . . .

Religious Exemptions, edited by Kevin Vallier and Michael Weber, contains fourteen chapters by authors analysing the concept of a religious exemption in the context of recent accretions in contemporary American positive law. The text explores a variety of issues, including vaccine refusal, commercial accommodations, exemption from equality of the sexes, same-sex marriage and trial proceedings. . . .In modem times, the laws newly introduced incur significant harm to whole sections of the community. A Muslim or Christian objector to same-sex marriage, for example, might never find employment in his field because he is automatically classified as guilty of hate and unlawful discrimination. . .

Lang J. Book Review: Religious exemptions. New Bioethics 2019 Sep; 25(3): 290-292, DOI:10.1080/20502877.2019.1649867

(Thesis) The Legal Revolution Against the Accommodation of Religion: The Secular Age v. The Sexular Age

Barry W Bussey

Abstract
This is a study about the law’s accommodation of religious practice and the brewing revolution within the legal profession against that accommodation. The revolution is especially evident, though not exclusively so, in sexual equality claims vis-à-vis religion. Originally, the study asked, “Why has religion been given special status in the law?”and “Should that status continue?”As a result of intense, multiyear research, I have come to recognize that there is within the legal profession a strident movement to remove from the law the traditional accommodation of religion. To explain my findings, I have used the work of Thomas S. Kuhn1as a theoretical framework.

Keywords:

Bussey BW. (Thesis) The Legal Revolution Against the Accommodation of Religion: The Secular Age v. The Sexular Age. University of Leiden. 2019;. Available from: https://www.academia.edu/40452980/The_legal_revolution_against_the_accommodation_of_religion_the_secular_age_versus_the_sexular_age

Not here: Catholic Hospital Systems and the Restriction Against Transgender Healthcare

Eric Plemons

Extract
. . . Over the past five years, however, public and
private health insurance coverage for transition-related surgery has increased exponentially.2 As available funds have increased, so has demand for services.3 American institutions are now struggling to meet a growing demand for competent, efficient, and effective transgender
healthcare that they had denied for decades. . . . The rapid expansion of Catholic hospitals is a concern for transgender people, their advocates, and the insurers who provide their health coverage because Catholic hospitals do not provide transition-related care. . .

Plemons E. Not here: Catholic Hospital Systems and the Restriction Against Transgender Healthcare. Crosscurrents. 2018 Dec; 68(4): 533-549.

The Right of Religious Hospitals to Refuse Physician-assisted Suicide

Barry W Bussey

Abstract
The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision to allow medical assistance in dying (MAiD) has created a crisis of conscience for religious hospitals that refuse MAiD based on religious beliefs and conscience. This paper argues that when the law is revised concerning fundamental human life issues (FHLI), such as assisted suicide, liberal democracies must tolerate religious communities and institutions that refuse to accept the law’s revision. This toleration for religious belief and practice is predicated on the idea that the religious practice at issue remains legal and forms part of the religious community’s moral framework to which the state remains neutral. A refusal to tolerate the religious position is a rejection of the collective wisdom of liberal democratic thought that has emphasized religious individual and, by extension, religious institutional freedom. The Christian hospital, having been around for millennia, forms a necessary part of civil society. Robert Putnam’s research on the importance of religion to civic society is used to make the argument that society as a whole benefits from the norm of reciprocity, (“I’ll do this for you now, with the expectation that you (or perhaps someone else) will return the favour”). As the state continues to allow the religious community to have “its” hospital, the community, as a whole, will continue to maintain a high level of trust toward the state. Radical positions from our historical norms require thoughtful reflection of their presuppositions. It would serve us well to maintain a humble appreciation of our cultural heritage even when we think we are right in our newfound positions on FHLI.

Bussey BW. The Right of Religious Hospitals to Refuse Physician-assisted Suicide. Supreme Court Law Review. 2018;189-223.