Conscience legislation ignores medical providers committed to giving patients all necessary care
Advances in medicine allow doctors to keep patients
alive longer, tackle fertility problems and extend the viability of
premature babies. They also lead to a growing number of moral questions
for both the medical provider and patient. “Across the country,
so-called conscience legislation allows doctors and nurses to refuse to
provide abortions, contraception, sterilizations, and end-of-life care,”
says Elizabeth Sepper, JD, health law expert and professor of law at
Washington University in St. Louis. “But legislators have totally
overlooked the consciences of providers who have made the conscientious
judgment to deliver care and of the patients who seek these treatments.” Sepper says that conscience in the medical setting needs to be protected more consistently. “The
one-sided protection of refusal cannot stand,” she says. “Just as we
wouldn’t say that giving students vouchers only for Christian schools
furthers religious freedom, we can’t say that current conscience
legislation successfully lives up to its goal of protecting conscience.