Project Administrator, Author at Protection of Conscience Project Library

Conscientious objection and abortifacient drugs

D B Brushwood

Abstract
The legal right to assert a conscientious objection is reviewed, using as an example the dispensing of abortifacient drugs by pharmacists. The three areas of law that most significantly concern the right to assert a conscientious refusal are employment law, conscience clauses, and religious discrimination law. Each of these is reviewed, with descriptions of recent cases. It is concluded that employment law protects refusals that are consistent with public policy, but does not permit an employee’s personal policy to determine how a business will be run; that conscience clauses appear to provide protection for pharmacists who object to dispensing abortifacients, but that the precise meanings of critical words and phrases in some clauses need to be defined; and that even though laws of religious discrimination require that employers accommodate religious beliefs, they may not protect a pharmacist who objects to dispensing abortifacients if the accommodation becomes unreasonably burdensome.

Brushwood DB. Conscientious objection and abortifacient drugs. Clin Therapeutics. 1993 Jan-Feb;15(1):204-212.

Has the Time Come for Doctor Death: Should Physician-Assisted Suicide Be Legalized

Wendy N Weigand

Extract
The implications of legalizing euthanasia for the medical profession and the potential for abuses are very troubling. Before public policy or legislation is formulated, the ethical issues inherent in the practice of euthanasia must be critically examined. . . It is the author’s assertion that the legalization of assisted suicide and/or physician-aid-in-dying is not the proper course of action at this time. There are too many other options available to doctors, nurses, hospitals and other health care institutions which must be exercised to their fullest extent before any form of active euthanasia is legalized.

Weigand WN. Has the Time Come for Doctor Death: Should Physician-Assisted Suicide Be Legalized. J Law Health. 1993;7(2):321-350.

Female circumcision: When medical ethics confronts cultural values

Eike-Henner Kluge

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ — Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
Canadian physicians cannot consistently accept the principle of respect for people in the name of medical ethics, and then perform procedures they know to be medically inappropriate, harmful and demeaning only because they do not want to offend a misplaced cultural sensitivity.

Kluge E-H. Female circumcision: When medical ethics confronts cultural values. Can Med Assoc J. 1993 Jan 15;148(2):288-289.

(News) Bombing of Toronto abortion clinic raises stakes in bitter debate

Gordon Bagley

Extract
The abortion clinic that Dr. Henry Morgentaler operated on Harbord Street in Toronto was an electronic fortress bristling with hidden cameras, burglary shock sensors and motion detectors, but the security measures were of little use last May 18. At about 3:23 on that Monday morning, a security camera filmed two shadowy characters approaching the clinic’s back door. The visitors, heavily disguised, used a drill to bore through the door lock. They poured gasoline into the clinic, let it aerosolize, and then used a Roman candle to ignite the fumes. In the resulting explosion the entire front wall of the two-storey structure shuddered, buckling building supports and flinging glass, bricks and other debris into the street. Fortunately, no one was injured – the street was deserted. Six months later, Toronto police seem no closer to finding the terrorists. . . . [lengthy article].

Bagley G. Bombing of Toronto abortion clinic raises stakes in bitter debate. Can Med Assoc J. 1992;147(10):1528-1533.

(Correspondence) Readers Advocate Pro-conscience, Not Pro-Choice (Invited response)

Susan Wysocki

Extract
A nurse practitioner’s personal position on this issue is irrelevant in tem1s of the provision of patient care. Our responsibility as nurse practitioners is to provide our patients with information that helps them to make their own decisions based on the constructs of their own beliefs and needs. This does not mean that nurse practitioners who find a patient’s reproductive-health decisions to be in conflict with their own morals and beliefs should be forced to counsel on those choices. Instead, they have a responsibility to ensure that the patient has her needs met with another provider.

Wysocki S. (Correspondence) Readers Advocate Pro-conscience, Not Pro-Choice (Invited response). Nurse Pract. 1992 Oct;17(10):8-9

(Correspondence) Readers Advocate Pro-conscience, Not Pro-choice

(Author reply)

Lynn C Barnard

Extract
“Let those nurses who oppose abortion and choice dedicate their energies to the development of a societal system that truly cares for women and will support their decisions – no matter what they are.”

Barnard LC. (Correspondence) Readers Advocate Pro-conscience, Not Pro-choice (Author reply). Nurse Pract. 1992;17(10):8

(Correspondence) Responsibility and abortion

Glenn Jones

Extract
Termination of pregnancy is the act of a powerful person (the pregnant woman) against a voiceless, innocent and powerless person. How does the misuse of power by women in this situation prove that their androgynous and gynocentric approaches to the use of power are different or better? . . . I agree with McEvoy that we must determine what abortion means over time to those most affected by it – women. However, she has failed to do that analysis.

Jones G. (Correspondence) Responsibility and abortion. Can Med Assoc J. 1992 Sep 15;147(6):840-842.

Religious Ethics and Active Euthanasia in a Pluralistic Society

Courtney S Campbell

Abstract
This article sets out a descriptive typology of religious perspectives on legalized euthanasia — political advocacy, individual conscience, silence, embedded opposition, and formal public opposition — and then examines the normative basis for these perspectives through the themes of sovereignty, stewardship, and the self. It also explores the public relevance of these religious perspectives for debates over legalized euthanasia, particularly in the realm of public policy. Ironically, the moral discourse of religious traditions on euthanasia may gain public relevance at the expense of its religious content. Nonetheless, religious traditions can provide a context of ultimacy and meaning to this debate, which is a condition for genuine pluralism.

Campbell CS. Religious Ethics and Active Euthanasia in a Pluralistic Society. Kennedy Inst Ethics J. 1992;2(3):253-277.

The Hospital Ethics Committee: Health Care’s Moral Conscience or White Elephant?

David C Blake

Abstract
In a morally fragmented society there is no good reason for ethics committees to assume any particular point of view, yet failure to do so compromises their ability to function in either a case-review or an educational capacity. A casuist methodology might enable committees to fulfill both roles.

Blake DC. The Hospital Ethics Committee: Health Care’s Moral Conscience or White Elephant?. Hastings Cent Rep. 1992;22(1):6-11.

Abusing human rights in the health care service under a soft dictatorship in Hungary

Gábor Ternák

Extract
Torture probably ended a long time ago in my country, but now we have more sophisticated ways of abusing human rights – in the way we deliver health care. The falsification of morbidity and mortality figures; not paying attention to the so-called ‘Capitalist’ diseases like drug abuse and even AIDS; not talking about the hazards of environmental pollution – all this has prevented us from taking ameliorating and protective measures.

Ternák G. Abusing human rights in the health care service under a soft dictatorship in Hungary. J Med Ethics. 1991;17(Supplement):40.