Matthew S Bowman, Christopher P Schandevel
Abstract
“Access” is the new catchphrase for expanding privacy rights. This shift moves from seeking merely legalization, to demanding government assistance and the participation of private citizens. . . . This article will begin by examining the chief access arguments being used against conscience protections today: that the health professionals hold a monopoly so they are bound to offer abortion, that health professionals must defer their pro-life consciences to abortion’s legal status, and that health professionals must not impose their pro-life views. The article will conclude that, if access principles really flowed from a neutral concern for patient choices, they would require rather than strike down conscience protections. In many cases patients desire in their physicians the traditional Hippocratic values that unequivocally support human life and therefore oppose participating in activities such as abortion. The right of patients to access such physicians can only exist by guaranteeing the right of physicians to practice according to those values.
Bowman MS, Schandevel CP. The Harmony Between Professional Conscience Rights and Patients’ Right of Access. Social Science Research Network. 2012;1-39.