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.
With good planning and good will, medical professionals’ right of conscience and patients’ rights to controversial services can be both protected and accommodated.
Physicians working in correctional systems face many ethical dilemmas and professional challenges in providing health care for incarcerated adolescents.
Melissa Weddle, MD, MPH and Patricia K. Kokotailo, MD, MPH
Physicians should honor confidentiality whenever possible when screening and treating adolescents for sensitive health conditions such as substance abuse.
When a pregnant woman is knowingly causing harm to her unborn child, there are various legal interventions that can be taken to protect the rights if the fetus.
Physicians need to exhaust every possible alternative to bring about political changes before resorting to breaking the law as an act of civil disobedience.
Although parents may someday have the ability to enhance the complex physical and mental traits of their offspring, such genetic enhancements raise a number of difficult ethical questions.