Joel T. Wu, JD, MPH, MA and Jennifer B. McCormick, PhD, MPP
False health-related speech can cause harm, but it’s not restricted unless it’s obscene. Physicians are obliged not only to correct patients’ false beliefs, but to engage digital spaces in which false claims thrive.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(11):E1052-1058. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1052.
Professional society guidelines can be used to set standards for clinical practice instead of government. This approach could help if federal or state policymakers view discarding embryos as ethically equivalent to abortion.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(12):E1160-1167. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1160.
To participate in a lethal injection is to occupy the medical role and use medical training for a purpose that is not part of the goals of medicine and that harms the recipient of treatment.
An attempt to investigate correlations between race, attitudes, and contraceptive use did not find meaningful associations between race and attitudes about birth control or pregnancy that could influence contraceptive choice.
Julian Savulescu's writing on conscientious objection is guided by an emphasis on the principle of distributive justice that does not allow religion to have a special status as justification.
With good planning and good will, medical professionals’ right of conscience and patients’ rights to controversial services can be both protected and accommodated.
A physician advocate who has taken public advocacy stances against the federal government while employed by the government talks about the conflicts that arise between medicine and politics.