Conscience Clauses, Health Care Providers, and Parents

Nancy Berlinger

Conscience Clauses, Health Care Providers, and Parents

Extract
Conscientious objection in health care always affects someone else’s health or access to care because the refusal interrupts the delivery of health services. Therefore, conscientious objection in health care always has a social dimension and cannot be framed solely as an issue of individual rights or beliefs. . . . Conscience rights are also limited by the foundational duty of care, which must be maintained through referrals and transfers so that a refusal to provide a service does not result in abandonment of a patient. . . Physicians who work in the 11 U.S. jurisdictions that permit terminally ill people, under certain conditions, to request a prescription of lethal medication with the goal of ending their lives may also have mixed emotions and intuitions about participating in medical aid-in-dying. . . Conscientious objection to providing or participating in certain activities on principle should not be used to avoid patient care that a professional finds stressful, or as a remedy for the common problem of moral distress.


Berlinger N. Conscience Clauses, Health Care Providers, and Parents [Internet]. Garrison, NY: The Hastings Center; 2022 May 31.

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