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Your Morality, My Mortality

Conscientious Objection and the Standard of Care

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2015

BEN A. RICH
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Abstract:

Recently the scope of protections afforded those healthcare professionals andinstitutions that refuse to provide certain interventions on the grounds ofconscience have expanded, in some instances insulating providers (institutionaland individual) from any liability or sanction for harms that patientsexperience as a result. With the exponential increase in the penetration ofCatholic-affiliated healthcare across the country, physicians and nurses who arenot practicing Catholics are nevertheless required to execute documents pledgingto conform their patient care to the Ethical and Religious Directives for HealthCare Services as a condition of employment or medical staff privileges. In someinstances, doing so may result in patient morbidity or mortality or violateprofessional standards for respecting advance directives or surrogatedecisionmaking. This article challenges the ethical propriety of suchinstitutional mandates and argues that legal protections for conscientiousrefusal must provide redress for patients who are harmed by care that fallsbelow the prevailing clinical standards.

Keywords

abortionCatholicismlawmedicineprofessional ethicsreligion

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Type
Departments and Columns
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , April 2015 , pp. 214 - 230
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

Notes

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