A medical team’s unprofessional reactions to the birth of a baby with ambiguous genitalia reflects their discomfort with variations in sex characteristics and sets a poor example for medical students.
With good planning and good will, medical professionals’ right of conscience and patients’ rights to controversial services can be both protected and accommodated.
Antibiotics can be compared to other forms of “tragedy of the commons,” whereby a common good (effective treatment of infections) is jeopardized by individual consumption and lack of stewardship.
AMA J Ethics. 2024;26(5):E418-428. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2024.418.
A growing number of states is enacting laws to protect the right of health care workers to conscientiously object to perform certain services that are morally opposed to.
Parents' ability to make medical decisions for their children can be limited by state law if it is determined that the child's best interest is not being met.