My mom was a registered nurse for many years before becoming a teacher at the local high school. Due to her service in the health field, and with thanks to her for the many dinnertime conversations about health care issues that, humorously, often made my father squirm in his seat, I’m sensitive to the consciences of health care workers. Society and the health care system used to be, too.
In this piece posted on The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network site, Wesley Smith provides some general principles for preserving the consciences, and livelihoods, of health care workers who might object to certain certain procedures, including abortions. I won’t post the entire article here; I encourage you to check it out for yourself. If such or similar measures are not implemented, Smith forewarns:
In the next decade, we could see the legalization of currently criminal and unethical medical acts – such as harvesting organs from patients with catastrophic cognitive impairments (which has repeatedly been advocated in some of the most prestigious medical journals), eugenic infanticide (now practiced openly in the Netherlands), perhaps even cloned fetal farming for organs or experimental purposes (already permitted by law in New Jersey). Crafting effective conscience clauses to allow medical professionals to opt out of such programs is thus a matter of increasing urgency.
HT: The Human Future.
