ns or cities. Such difficulties are usually resolved by visiting
specialists or by sending the patient for treatment at a central location.
What is done for reasons of economy could also be done for reasons of
conscience - if conscience is valued as highly as economics.
A) This kind of conflict can be prevented or
resolved by identifying, in advance, the performance of certain procedures
as a bona fide requirement of a position to be filled. PCLs can be
drafted to allow for such eventualities; the
Model Statute illustrates one way of doing this.
A) It has actually been an issue for many
years. It was considered in the drafting of the abortion law in the United
Kingdom in 1968, which includes a protection of conscience provision. However, in recent years the issue of
freedom of conscience in health care has come increasingly to the fore
because of pressures from activists who make aggressive rights and
exaggerated rights claims, and because of ethical
problems generated by advancing medical technologies and the lobbies for euthanasia and
A) The reason usually advanced to justify
coerced participation in sterilization, contraception, or abortion is that
the health care worker's 'personal values' must give way to the choice made
by the patient. The same reasoning is used to justify coerced participation in
various kinds of reproductive technologies, in euthanasia and in assisted
A) Yes. Two universities
in Belgium joined the Flemish Association and General in 2003 in a statement
asserting that physicians unwilling to provide euthanasis should help
patients find someone willing to provide the service. Since then, a
panel of the Royal Society of Canada and a legislative committee in the
province of Quebec, Canada have issued reports recommending legalization of
assisted suicide/euthanasia, and compulsory referral by objecting
Belgium: Mandatory Referral for Euthanasia]