Principled Conscientious Provision: Referral Symmetry and Its Implications for Protecting Secular Conscience.

"Conscientious provision" refers to situations in which clinicians wish to provide legal and professionally accepted treatments prohibited within their (usually Catholic) health care institutions. It mirrors "conscientious objection," which refers to situations in which clinicians refuse to provide legal and professionally accepted treatments offered within their (usually secular) health care institutions. Conscientious provision is not protected by law, but conscientious objection is. In practice, this asymmetry privileges conservative religious or moral values (usually associated with objection) over secular moral values (usually associated with provision). In this article, we first argue for a legal right to one kind of conscientious provision: referral for procedures prohibited at Catholic hospitals. We then argue that a premise in that argument-the principle of comparably trivial institutional burdens-justifies legal protections for some additional forms of conscientious provision that include, for example, writing prescriptions for contraception or medical abortions. However, this principle cannot justify legal protections for other forms of conscientious provision, for instance, the right to perform surgical abortions or gender-affirming hysterectomies at Catholic hospitals.

Brummett AL ，Hafen T ，Navin MC 《-》

Conscience, Disobedience, and Standard of Care.

In the article "Principled Conscientious Provision: Referral Symmetry and Its Implications for Protecting Secular Conscience," Abram L. Brummett, Tanner Hafen, and Mark C. Navin reject what they call the "referral asymmetry" in U.S. conscientious objection law in medicine, which recognizes rights of conscientiously objecting physicians to withhold referrals for medical interventions but does not (yet) recognize rights of physicians to make referrals for medical interventions to which they are morally committed but to which their health care institutions are morally opposed. This commentary concentrates on a second asymmetry, namely, the relationship of a health care provider's referral or nonreferral to the medical standard of care. The commentary argues that this second asymmetry seems to require action more appropriately recognized as civil disobedience than conscientious provision of referral.

Latham SR 《-》

Legal briefing: conscience clauses and conscientious refusal.

Pope TM 《-》

A Matter of Conscience: Examining the Law and Policy of Conscientious Objection in Health Care.

Fry-Bowers EK 《-》

The inequity of conscientious objection: Refusal of emergency contraception.

Yang C 《-》