Abstract
BackgroundIn the debate on conscientious objection in healthcare, proponents of conscience rights often point to the imperative to protect the health professional’s moral integrity. Their opponents hold that the moral integrity argument alone can at most justify accommodation of conscientious objectors as a “moral courtesy”, as the argument is insufficient to establish a general moral right to accommodation, let alone a legal right.Main textThis text draws on political philosophy in order to argue for a legal right to accommodation. The moral integrity arguments should be supplemented by the requirement to protect minority rights in liberal democracies. Citizens have a right to live in accordance with their fundamental moral convictions, and a right to equal access to employment. However, this right should not be unconditional, as that would unduly infringe on the rights of other citizens. The right must be limited to cases where the moral basis is more fundamental in a sense that all reasonable citizens in a liberal democracy should accept, such as the constitutive role of the inviolability of human life in liberal democracies.ConclusionThere should be a legal, yet circumscribed, right to accommodation for conscientious objectors refusing to provide healthcare services that they reasonably consider to involve the intentional killing of a human being.
Highlights
This text draws on political philosophy in order to argue for a legal right to accommodation
The special moral status of intentional killing The fact that there is a legal right to conscience-based exemption from military service indicates that liberal democracies' citizens value freedom of conscience and that this protection is considered to be warranted in matters of life and death
We have presented four main arguments that together support a legal right to exemption from procedures that involve intentional killing: moral integrity, the fact of moral ignorance in some hard cases, equality for moral minorities in liberal democracies and the special status of taking human life
Summary
The constitutive moral values of democracy Liberal democracy is the government of free and equal citizens. The special moral status of intentional killing The fact that there is a legal right to conscience-based exemption from military service indicates that liberal democracies' citizens value freedom of conscience and that this protection is considered to be warranted in matters of life and death. The fact that conditions for lawful assisted dying are set out in detail indicates that this is not merely a question of helping someone who wants to exercise their freedom by ending their life It is reasonable, in the sense stated above, to consider such assisted suicide to be illegitimate killing, and citizens should have a legal right to be exempted from performing such acts if they hold them to be contrary to their conscience, without this infringing on their right to freely choose jobs. These must be connected to fundamental values of liberal democracies, such as the inviolability of human life
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