A patient's request or demand for treatment does not obligate a physician to provide the treatment if the physician thinks it will cause more harm than good.
Respecting patient autonomy sometimes entails adult patients' making what those in allopathic medicine view as poor decisions, but compassionate patient communication can leave the door open for patients to change their minds.
Amanda Fakih, MHSA and Kayte Spector-Bagdady, JD, MBE
Testing everyone for everything identifies more fetal conditions, but confusion persists about whether clinicians should leave screening decisions to patients.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(10):E858-864. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.858.
Two physicians offer commentaries about the use of prenatal predictive testing for a late-onset disease like Huntington's and question whether the pregnant woman should ultimately have the decisional autonomy to determine the quality of life of the unborn child.