A physician attorney argues that the best way to ensure that physicians don't refuse to treat patients is to create a system in which their medical education is fully funded and they must repay a debt to society.
Fifty-seven percent of women in a recent large study did not want to view their ultrasounds before their abortions, suggesting that mandated viewing interferes with uncoerced consent to care, a hallmark of medical ethics.
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.
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.
Refusal of pediatric euthanasia can be considered iatrogenic insofar as it inadvertently prolongs patient suffering, but attitudes differ cross-culturally.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(8):802-814. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.8.msoc1-1708.
“Difficult” patient-physician encounters have roots in uncertainty about individuals’ trustworthiness, clinicians’ skills and training, and medical science.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(4):391-398. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.4.mhst1-1704.