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.
The social institutions of medicine and the state have a complex history of interaction in which doctors have been the originators of political ideals, goals, and social change but equally often have found themselves to be instruments of political authority.
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.
Instead of succumbing to the urge to portray cultural differences as a dichotomy between clashing opposites, we should endeavor to note our common humanity, acknowledge the plurality of viewpoints within a given culture, and appreciate that cultures can evolve without being untrue to themselves.
Physicians need to exhaust every possible alternative to bring about political changes before resorting to breaking the law as an act of civil disobedience.