Not all cultural traditions have the same conception of personhood. In Confucianism, self-individuation takes place only through engagement with others in the context of one’s social roles and relationships.
Distinguishing between elective and therapeutic abortions undermines the moral agency of patients and disproportionately amplifies moral rather than medical dimensions of the procedure.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(12):E1175-1180. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1175.
The clinician/healer must both address the disease and seek to know how the medical condition is being experienced by the patient—what impact it has on his or her life and spirit.
When patient autonomy became a closely held value in medical ethics in the 1960s and '70s, the physician’s conscience-based right to refuse to deliver a given service began to be contested.