When patient autonomy became a closely held value in medical ethics in the 1960s and '70s, the physician’s conscience-based right to refuse to deliver a given service began to be contested.
Julian Savulescu's writing on conscientious objection is guided by an emphasis on the principle of distributive justice that does not allow religion to have a special status as justification.
If employees of religious institutions whose consciences conflict with those of their employers were to be granted legal protection for positive claims of conscience, the religious freedom of institutions within which they work would be gravely compromised.
The practice of banking sperm from adolescents about to undergo chemotherapy is not universal, which lends support to the argument that parental consent be required for the intervention.
Supporters of reproductive choice believe that women receive inadequate information about prenatal testing—often after some testing has already been done.
Raising occupational consciousness and critically questioning ahistorical and apolitical uses of "battle" is needed for responding to antimicrobial resistance.
AMA J Ethics. 2024;26(5):E390-398. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2024.390.
Clinical and psychosocial considerations influence how oncologists approach discussing sperm banking with adolescent patients who are about to undergo chemotherapy and with the parents of those patients.