Several recent court cases illustrate how some states are attempting to mandate physician reporting of all underage sexual activity as instances of child abuse.
Global health training offered through UCSF’s EMPOWUR program prepares ob/gyn residents to work in under-resourced communities locally as well as globally.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(3):253-260. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.3.medu1-1803.
State laws prohibiting sodomy were on the books throughout US history until struck down by the US Supreme Court, which argued in Lawrence v Texas (2003) that the state cannot criminalize private sexual conduct.
Herman Melville's account of Bartleby the scrivener has something to teach us about the interactive nature of refusal and the empathy necessary for an exchange of values in the setting of conscientious refusal.
In the past, forced sterilizations violated the autonomy of vulnerable women. Today, measures intended to protect such women from the abuses of the past may in fact hamper their autonomy in a different way.
An argument that the concept of judicious dissent can resolve the debate over a physician’s conscience-based right to refuse to provide lawful services.
An argument that an individual physician’s conscience-based decision not to offer specific, lawful medical services should not restrict patients’ access to those services.