{"id":13605,"date":"2006-02-18T19:06:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-19T03:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=13605"},"modified":"2023-01-23T21:59:55","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T05:59:55","slug":"correspondence-conscientious-objection-in-medicine-doctors-freedom-of-conscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=13605","title":{"rendered":"(Correspondence) Conscientious objection in medicine: Doctors&#8217; freedom of conscience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Vaughn P Smith<\/h4>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"172\" height=\"230\" src=\"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/bmj.jpg\" alt=\"British Medical Journal, BMJ\" class=\"wp-image-11229\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">British Medical Journal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Extract<\/strong><br>Since visiting Auschwitz, I have grappled with the question of how I would have behaved as a doctor in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. I hope I would have had the moral courage to refuse to participate in the various perversions of medicine that these regimes demanded \u2014 for example, respectively, eugenic \u201cresearch\u201d and psychiatric \u201ctreatment\u201d of dissidents.  . . . My chances of behaving honourably would have been<br>greatest if I had felt part of an independent medical profession with allegiance to something higher and more enduring than the regime of the day. They would have been least if Savulescu\u2019s opinions had prevailed . . .After 30 years of reading the BMJ, Sava-<br>lescu\u2019s article was the first one to make me feel physically sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Smith VP. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC1370984\/pdf\/bmj33200425.pdf\">(Correspondence) Conscientious objection in medicine: Doctors&#8217; freedom of conscience.<\/a> Br Med J. 2006 Feb 18;332(425)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vaughn P Smith ExtractSince visiting Auschwitz, I have grappled with the question of how I would have behaved as a doctor in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. I hope I would have had the moral courage to refuse to participate in the various perversions of medicine that these regimes demanded \u2014 for example, respectively, eugenic &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=13605\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;(Correspondence) Conscientious objection in medicine: Doctors&#8217; freedom of conscience&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,554,17,871,882,1024],"tags":[85,1462],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-13605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-ethics","category-eugenics-genetics","category-holocaust","category-journals-correspondence","category-research","tag-julian-savulescu","tag-vaughn-p-smith"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\r\n<title>(Correspondence) Conscientious objection in medicine: Doctors&#039; 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