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.
Some question whether plastic surgeons bear responsibility for promoting suspect norms of beauty, given that certain types of cosmetic enhancements reinforce common conceptions of normality that are harmful to society.
A growing number of states is enacting laws to protect the right of health care workers to conscientiously object to perform certain services that are morally opposed to.