Dr Jennifer Aldrich joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Jessica Kant and Eric Gramszlo: “Gender-Affirming Care, Incarceration, and the Eighth Amendment.”
An undercurrent in all debates about allocation of health care resources to the poor is the matter of access to and coverage of health care for immigrants, particularly low-income and undocumented ones.
Although patients’ medical gender transition can be facilitated by counseling, as a matter of medical ethics, informed consent must be obtained for treatment.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(11):1079-1085. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.11.ecas2-1611.
Protecting one’s moral integrity may require a conscience clause that protects positive conscience claims by permitting individuals to perform actions that are otherwise prohibited by legal or institutional rules.
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.