Many pregnant undocumented immigrants are ineligible for public insurance covering prenatal care. National and state policies can either help or hinder patients’ access to health care that is universally recommended by professional guidelines.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(1):E93-99. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.93.
Some disability advocates take issue with the “normalization” goals of the medical model of rehabilitation, but expressions of that position can be dismissive of rehabilitationists’ efforts to remediate oppressive functional deficits.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(6):562-567. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.6.msoc1-1506.
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.
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.
Navajo students whose beliefs forbid them from touching dead bodies need not forgo pursuing careers in medicine; some medical school administrators are teaching anatomy without cadavers.
A physician attorney argues that the best way to ensure that physicians don't refuse to treat patients is to create a system in which their medical education is fully funded and they must repay a debt to society.