Patients, practitioners, and conscience: Why religion should not divide

Abstract

Summary In this paper, I take up the role of conscience in medical practice. I focus on the role that religious claims play in debates over conscience in medicine, in particular, and in healthcare, more broadly. Much work on conscience and conscientious practice within healthcare is framed in terms of a debate over whether practitioners should be allowed to conscientiously object to specific healthcare practices and, if so, on what grounds. A common instance of this general framing admits of two descriptions: first, that exercising their conscience – i.e., by conscientiously objecting to a particular practice which is viewed by the profession of which the practitioner is a part – is an inappropriate foisting of practitioners’ personal religious values on a patient; second, that exercising their conscience is an appropriate response to disagreement over issues of ultimate concern within a profession or within a society, in light of deeply held religious beliefs. Though what I will call the religious framing of the conscience debate is not the only framing it is a prominent one and one which, I argue, is mistaken. After describing the debate, I argue that the root of disagreement is not religious claims but rather differing conceptions of moral responsibility. If this is correct, then I hope to have refocused attention in a debate that appears intractable to a place where a resolution is possible.