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.
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.
With good planning and good will, medical professionals’ right of conscience and patients’ rights to controversial services can be both protected and accommodated.
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.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that physician-assisted suicide is a matter of states' rights, there are many ethical and legal issues still unresolved for physicians.