Article Text
Abstract
An analogy is sometimes drawn between the proper treatment of conscientious objectors in healthcare and in military contexts. In this paper, I consider an aspect of this analogy that has not, to my knowledge, been considered in debates about conscientious objection in healthcare. In the USA and elsewhere, tribunals have been tasked with the responsibility of recommending particular forms of alternative service for conscientious objectors. Military conscripts who have a conscientious objection to active military service, and whose objections are deemed acceptable, are required either to serve the military in a non-combat role, or assigned some form of community service that does not contribute to the effectiveness of the military. I argue that consideration of the role that military tribunals have played in determining the appropriate form of alternative service for conscripts who are conscientious objectors can help us to understand how conscientious objectors in healthcare ought to be treated. Additionally, I show that it helps us to address the vexed issue of whether or not conscientious objectors who refuse to provide a service requested by a patient should be required to refer that patient to another healthcare professional.
- Conscientious Objection
- Abortion
- Health Workforce
- Religious Ethics
- War
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Other content recommended for you
- Conscientious objection in healthcare: new directions
- Non-accommodationism and conscientious objection in healthcare: a response to Robinson
- Conscientious objection in healthcare: why tribunals might be the answer
- Voluntarily chosen roles and conscientious objection in health care
- Questionable benefits and unavoidable personal beliefs: defending conscientious objection for abortion
- Professional and conscience-based refusals: the case of the psychiatrist's harmful prescription
- Conscientious objection and medical tribunals
- Public reason and the limited right to conscientious objection: a response to Magelssen
- Conscientious objection and the referral requirement as morally permissible moral mistakes
- When should conscientious objection be accepted?