The default principle—that someone is free to do what he or she desires in the absence of a compelling reason why he or she should not—may make it possible to resolve ethical disputes without recourse to a particular moral framework.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(4):289-296. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.4.spec1-1504.
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.
If employees of religious institutions whose consciences conflict with those of their employers were to be granted legal protection for positive claims of conscience, the religious freedom of institutions within which they work would be gravely compromised.
All of us who are pursuing solutions to the obesity epidemic face clinical, ethical, and regulatory challenges. First among them is the significant role of individual lifestyle and behavior choices in causing obesity.
Supporters of reproductive choice believe that women receive inadequate information about prenatal testing—often after some testing has already been done.
Lynn P. Freedman, JD, MPH, Rana E. Barar, and Ann M. Drobnik, MPH
Physicians should play a critical role in expanding access to reproductive health choices for women, including the choice to give birth under the care of a midwife.