Andrew M. Courtwright, MA and Mia Wechsler Doron, MTS, MD
A positive right to parenthood obligates others to support a person’s attempt to become a parent. Do physicians have a duty to assist their patients’ procreative efforts, and, if so, in what ways?
Asking for forgiveness may be oppressive to a patient or family still grappling with the fact of the harm, the impact of the harm, and their own emotional response to the harm.
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.