{"id":8892,"date":"2016-12-08T15:34:39","date_gmt":"2016-12-08T23:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=8892"},"modified":"2023-01-22T15:44:06","modified_gmt":"2023-01-22T23:44:06","slug":"conscience-and-agent-integrity-a-defence-of-conscience-based-exemptions-in-the-health-care-context","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=8892","title":{"rendered":"Conscience and Agent-Integrity: A Defence of Conscience-Based Exemptions in the Health Care Context"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Mary Neal, Sara Fovargue <\/h4>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"153\" height=\"230\" src=\"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/medlawrev.jpg\" alt=\"Medical Law Review\" class=\"wp-image-11207\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Medical Law Review<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong><br> The issue of conscientious refusal by health care practitioners  continues to attract attention from academics, and was the subject of a  recent UK Supreme Court decision. Activism aimed at changing abortion  law and the decision to devolve governance of abortion law to the  Scottish Parliament both raise the prospect of altered provision for  conscience in domestic law. In this article, building on earlier work,  we argue that conscience is fundamentally connected to moral integrity  and essential to the proper functioning of moral agency. We examine  recent attempts to undermine the view of conscience as a matter of  integrity and argue that these have been unsuccessful. With our view of  conscience as a prerequisite for moral integrity and agency established  and defended, we then take issue with the \u2018incompatibility thesis\u2019 (the  claim that protection for conscience is incompatible with the  professional obligations of health care practitioners). We reject each  of the alternative premises on which the incompatibility thesis might  rest, and challenge the assumption of a public\/private divide which is  entailed by all versions of the thesis. Finally, we raise concerns about  the apparent blindness of the thesis to issues of power and privilege,  and conclude that conscience merits robust protection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Neal M, Fovargue S.  <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/medlaw\/article\/24\/4\/544\/2623371\">Conscience and Agent-Integrity: A Defence of Conscience-Based Exemptions in the Health Care Context<\/a>. Med Law Rev. 2016 Nov 1;24(4):544-570. doi: 10.1093\/medlaw\/fww023 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mary Neal, Sara Fovargue Abstract The issue of conscientious refusal by health care practitioners continues to attract attention from academics, and was the subject of a recent UK Supreme Court decision. Activism aimed at changing abortion law and the decision to devolve governance of abortion law to the Scottish Parliament both raise the prospect of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=8892\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Conscience and Agent-Integrity: A Defence of Conscience-Based Exemptions in the Health Care Context&#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":[554,2],"tags":[934,256,257],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-8892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-journal-article","tag-integrity","tag-mary-neal","tag-sara-fovargue"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\r\n<title>Conscience and 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