Health workers care for COVID-19 patients, just as St Roch tended to bubonic plague victims during the Renaissance. Three artworks relate Roch’s story and apply key insights to the 2020 pandemic.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(5):E441-445. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.441.
Two bioethicists argue that prenatal disability screening promotes negativity toward the disabled and gives parents the ability to selectively form families.
A philosophy professor argues that prenatal genetic testing allows potentially painful afflictions to be discovered prior to birth and does not unjustly discriminate against disabled people.
Margaret Little, PhD and Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MA, MD
Society is best served by an approach to conscience that combines a progressive understanding of patients’ needs, a nuanced determination of when those needs translate into claims, and a limited role for conscientious refusal.