When called to consult or to testify at “sexually violent predator” hearings, medical professionals’ primary task is adapting recognized medical terminology to the SVP label; they are asked to shoehorn medical diagnoses into ill-fitting legal language.
Equating conscience with clinical judgment challenges the way that ethics is marginalized in medical education. Ethics is simply an account of what good medical practice looks like in particular situations.
Despite industry regulations for pharmaceutical speaker programming at restaurants, pharmaceutical representatives, compliance companies, and restaurants lack incentives for ensuring compliance with guidelines.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(8):787-795. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.8.sect1-1508.
Forced sterilization of HIV-positive women, which is widespread in South Africa, Namibia, and Chile, violates women’s human right to autonomy and the principle of informed consent and is medically unnecessary.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):952-957. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.pfor2-1510.
Physicians who torture historically have not been held accountable by the law or medical profession, but national medical associations can promote accountability.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):945-951. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.pfor1-1510.
Although force-feeding prisoners might seem to be in the interests of beneficence and justice, international codes of ethics permit prisoners to refuse nourishment if they make a rational, uncoerced choice to do so.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(10):904-908. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.10.ecas2-1510.