Distinguishing between elective and therapeutic abortions undermines the moral agency of patients and disproportionately amplifies moral rather than medical dimensions of the procedure.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(12):E1175-1180. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2018.1175.
Labels commonly used in clinical settings, like “elective” or “therapeutic,” influence how we think about the justifiability of abortion. We talk with Professor Katie Watson and Dr Maryl Sackeim about how the language clinicians use to describe abortion can affect patients’ experiences and even cause harm.
Professor Katie Watson joins Ethics Talk to discuss what clinicians need to know about changes to the post-June 2022 legal, ethical, and clinical landscape of abortion care in the US.
Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin joins Ethics Talk to consider how members of different US Supreme Courts have interpreted the US Constitution in ways that have supported or undermined liberty in surprising ways.
Professor Katie Watson joins Ethics Talk to consider key questions about clinical and legal risk management for clinicians trying keep patients safe and for patients with complex pregnancies trying to stay alive.
Principles of respect for autonomy, beneficence, and nonmaleficence guide trauma-informed care. Care ethics should also support this framework for responding to the health needs of trafficked patients.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(1):80-90. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.1.msoc2-1701.
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.
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.