Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Three approaches to conscientious objection in health care: conscience absolutism, the incompatibility thesis, and compromise
- 3 Ethical limitations on the exercise of conscience
- 4 Pharmacies, health care institutions, and conscientious objection
- 5 Students, residents, and conscience-based exemptions
- 6 Conscience clauses: too much and too little protection
- References
- Index
6 - Conscience clauses: too much and too little protection
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Three approaches to conscientious objection in health care: conscience absolutism, the incompatibility thesis, and compromise
- 3 Ethical limitations on the exercise of conscience
- 4 Pharmacies, health care institutions, and conscientious objection
- 5 Students, residents, and conscience-based exemptions
- 6 Conscience clauses: too much and too little protection
- References
- Index
Summary
Legal rules and regulations that protect the exercise of conscience are referred to as “conscience clauses.” The first US federal health care conscience clause, the Church Amendment (42 U.S.C. § 300a-7(a–b)), was enacted in 1973. It protects conscience-based refusals related to abortion and sterilization. Subsequently, numerous federal and state laws and regulations have been enacted that protect the exercise of conscience by health care professionals. At the federal level, sections were added to the Church Amendment, significantly expanding its scope. One additional section (42 U.S.C. § 300a-7(c)) prohibits discrimination against a practitioner for refusing to perform or assist in the performance of “any lawful health service or research activity on the grounds that his performance or assistance in the performance of such service or activity would be contrary to his religious beliefs or moral convictions …” Another added section (42 U.S.C. § 300a-7(d)) states:
No individual shall be required to perform or assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity funded in whole or in part under a program administered by the Secretary of Health and Human Services if his performance or assistance in the performance of such part of such program or activity would be contrary to his religious beliefs or moral convictions.
Additional federal legislation includes the Coats Amendment (42 U.S.C. § 238n) and the Weldon Amendment (121 Stat. 1844, 2209).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Conscientious Objection in Health CareAn Ethical Analysis, pp. 203 - 230Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011