Protection of Conscience Project Library
Service, not Servitude
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Forces worldwide are leading to greater intermingling of cultures with different perspectives on status of women, and it is unlikely that sex-selective abortions can be reduced without conscious efforts to raise awareness of gender equality at all levels of society.
Auger N, Kang HS. (Correspondence) Female feticide. Can Med Assoc J. 2012;184(9):1064.
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The moral problem related to defining a space for personal values in medical care is that they may conflict with professional values, legitimising discrimination. Then it would be nearly impossible to criticise doctors and institutions that refuse abortion, do not examine patients of the opposite sex on religious grounds, and refuse to operate on HIV-positive patients or to treat people with different political affiliations. It would be hard to call that kind of environment a “healthy diversity”.
Civaner M. (Correspondence) Should doctors feel able to practise according to their personal values and beliefs?. Med J Aust. 2012 Feb 06;196(2):109.
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Clinicians have to be prepared to go to court to put their case for the best interests of the child, and then accept the legal decision with good grace, however personally distressing. This is just another example in medicine of the need for all to work with less than desirable outcomes.
Adam WR. (Correspondence) Should doctors feel able to practise according to their personal values and beliefs? Med J Aust. 2012;196(2):109.
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“Do doctors have the right to refuse certain treatments on the grounds of personal conscience?” Is the question asking about Conway’s point about what the doctor sincerely, on medical grounds, considers to be in the patient’s best interests, or is the question asking about a doctor’s refusal to attend to a patient on the basis of some irrational prejudice? Horses of quite different colours — racing in different races.
Arnold PC. (Correspondence) Should doctors feel able to practise according to their personal values and beliefs? Med J Aust. 2012;196(1):38. Available from:
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The correct measure of the public health burden of a discrete event is its incidence: the annual per capita rate of occurrence of the event of interest in the relevant population group. As we reported, the incidence of induced abortion in Peru is as high as, or higher than, the incidence in Britain and the United States, but in Peru this practice is illegal, performed clandestinely and potentially unsafe. . . .he is probably correct in his assertion that the legal restrictions in Peru result in relatively fewer pregnancies being terminated in that country than in Britain or the United States; that is, there are more unwanted births in Peru. . . The high incidence of induced abortion clearly indicates a high incidence of unwanted pregnancy.
White B, Bernabé-Ortiz A. (Correspondence) Incidence of induced abortions in Peru (Two of the authors respond). Can Med Assoc J. 2009 May 26;180(11):1133.
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Jeremy Simon’s commentary argues that physicians may decline to deactivate an LVAD even at the request of a capable patient. . . . No doctor may be forced to act against her conscience to end a patient’s life. A physician moved by Simon’s argument would be covered by this doctrine. As for legal precedents, if there have been any cases regarding the removal of destination LVADs, there certainly have not been enough for the case law in this matter to be considered settled. . .
Simon J, Fischbach R. (Correspondence) LVADs and the Limits of Autonomy. Hast Cent Rep. 2008 May-June;5.
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While a fetus dies during an abortion, women also die when they don’t have access to proper reproductive services. People died in concentration camps and during civil rights protests. However, I would never compare reproductive issues to those historical events. . . . Regardless of which side we stand on in this debate, let’s not do an injustice to those who endured so much in WWII and in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s to allow us to have the freedom to have this debate. . . . Doing no harm may be impossible. Doing the lesser of harms is more achievable.
Silk H. (Correspondence) Responses to Abortion Training. Fam Med. 2008 May;40(5):311.
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The recent ethical guideline of the General Medical Council puts doctors in an impossible position. The giving of information or aiding someone to obtain a service the doctor considers immoral contravenes the essence of conscientious objection. The doctor’s right to have his moral code respected, provided that it isn’t spurious or lacking a credible evidence base, is a basic human right.
Breen EG. (Correspondence) GMC guidance on beliefs: Denies conscientious objection. Br Med J. 2008;336(7648):790.
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Abortion training for residents is not simply a “politically charged” issue, as the authors assert. It is a moral or ethical issue. As faculty physicians in family medicine residency programs, we oppose the introduction of abortion training on moral, not political grounds. German physicians “politicized” euthanasia and ultimately killed 200,000 mentally ill and disabled persons from 1939–1945.
Clark GW, Latimer K, Richard W Sams II, Zubrod G. (Correspondence) Integrating Abortion Training Into FM Residency Programs. Fam Med. 2008;40(1).
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To impose the philosophy of caveat emptor is morally inadequate, given the differences in power and class between many physicians and their patients. Physicians must not be permitted to disavow responsibility on the grounds of conscientious objection; rather, such practitioners must choose careers in which their fundamental values do not interfere with the autonomy and well-being of patients. Like conscientious objectors to military service, medical conscientious objectors must bear the consequences of their beliefs.
Clayton EW. (Correspondence) Religion, Conscience and Controversial Clinical Practices. N Engl J Med. 2007 May 03;356(18):1890.