Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization and doctors’ conscientious commitment to provide abortion
Alberto Giubilini, University of Oxford
Udo Schuklenk, Queen’s University
Francesca Minerva, University of Milan
Julian Savulescu, National University of Singapore and University of Oxford
(reposted from the Journal of Medical Ethics Blog )
The reversal of the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling by the US Supreme Court in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization removed the Constitutional protection of women’s right to access abortion services in the US. This decision has resulted in renewed interest in the morality of conscientious commitment by health care professionals to provide abortion care.
Typically, ethical debates on conscience in health care revolve around the morality of doctors refusing to provide professional services on idiosyncratic personal conscience claims. Here the issue is different in that conscientious doctors, motivated by a commitment to professional values, might want to provide services that are arguably in their patients’ best interest, but that are illegal.
A Juror’s Guide to Going Rogue
Written by Doug McConnell
A jury recently acquitted several activists charged with causing £25,000 worth of damage to Shell’s HQ in London despite the defendants admitting that they caused the damage and the judge informing the jury that the defendants had no legal defence. In other words, if the law were applied correctly, the jury had no choice but to find them guilty. When juries deviate from the law and “go rogue” like this, it is known as “nullification”. But when, if ever, should juries behave in this way? Continue reading
Conscience Rights or Conscience Wrongs?: Debating Conscientious Objection in Healthcare
Written by: David Albert Jones, Anscombe Bioethics Centre
& Alberto Giubilini, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford
For the purpose of this debate (held online on 12 October 2020), Alberto Giubilini and David Albert Jones each adopted a position on conscientious objection (CO) contrary to the one that he in fact holds. David A. Jones, who is a defender of a right to conscientious objection in healthcare, made the case against it. Alberto Giubilini, who is against a right to conscientious objection in healthcare, made the case in favour of it. What follows is an evaluation by each of the arguments of the other in relation to their strengths and how they were presented. Continue reading
Institutional Conscientious Objection
by Roger Crisp
In a recent work-in-progress seminar at the Oxford Uehiro Centre, Xavier Symons, from the University of Notre Dame Australia, gave a fascinating and suggestive presentation based on some collaborative work he has been doing with Reginald Chua OP, from the Catholic Theological College, on institutional conscientious objection. Continue reading
Against Conscientious Objection In Health Care: A Counterdeclaration And Reply To Oderberg
Alberto Giubilini (Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford) and
Julian Savulescu (Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford)
Conscientious objection in health care – that is, healthcare practitioners objecting to performing certain legal, safe, and beneficial medical procedures (e.g. abortion) that a patient requests by appealing to their personal moral values – is one of the most debated topics in medical ethics at present time. Although at the moment doctors’ private conscience enjoys a lot of legal protection – most laws that make abortion legal contain clauses that exempt doctors from performing the procedure if they so wish. We have provided reasons, both in this forum and in our academic work, for why we think that conscientious objection in health care is not morally permissible and should not be allowed in the case of procedures that are legal, safe, beneficial, autonomously requested by patients and, more generally, consistent with the standards of good medical practice (see e.g. Savulescu 2006, Savulescu and Schuklenk 2017, Giubilini 2014, Giubilini 2017). Some people disagree and advance reasons for the opposite view. One of the scholars who has more clearly and straightforwardly articulated the principles and reasons in support of conscientious objection in health care is Professor Oderberg of Reading University. Prof Oderberg was recently invited to debate the issue with Julian Savulescu at the Masters Course in Practical Ethics run by the Uehiro Centre here at the University of Oxford. On that occasion, Prof Oderberg’s defense of conscientious objection centred around a series of principles and considerations that he very effectively formulated in the 17 main points that constitute his “Declaration in support of conscientious objection in health care”, published on the University of Reading website and which is available for people who agree with him to sign. Continue reading
Video Series: Dominic Wilkinson on Conscientious Objection in Healthcare
Associate Professor and Consultant Neonatologist Dominic Wilkinson (Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics) argues that medical doctors should not always listen to their own conscience and that often they should do what the patient requests, even when this conflicts with their own values.
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