Damage to Trust

Abstract

Chapter 3 focuses on the harm that conscientious refusals cause when they diminish the trust that patients have in health care professionals and professions. The author argues that damage to trust from typical refusals is very likely to occur, because of the nature of these refusals as well as the nature of trust. She also critiques a response to this concern about trust by Holly Fernandez Lynch. In her Conflicts of Conscience in Health Care (2008), Lynch develops what she calls an “institutional compromise” to the problem of how to regulate conscientious refusals. She contends that one benefit of her solution is that it would prevent damage to trust from conscientious refusals. Chapter 3 of this book endeavors to show, on the contrary, that insofar as our concern is with patient trust, we should reject Lynch’s proposal.