Abstract
This article examines one kind of conscientious refusal: the refusal of healthcare professionals to treat sexual dysfunction in individuals with a history of sexual offending. According to what I call the orthodoxy, such refusal is invariably impermissible, whereas at least one other kind of conscientious refusal-refusal to offer abortion services-is not. I seek to put pressure on the orthodoxy by (1) motivating the view that either both kinds of conscientious refusal are permissible or neither is, and (2) critiquing two attempts to buttress it.
Highlights
This article examines one kind of conscientious refusal: the refusal of healthcare professionals to treat sexual dysfunction in individuals with a history of sexual offending
It seemed to the urologists that there should be a system whereby forensic psychiatrists specialising in sex offenses would assess past sex offenders and offer guidance on whether treatment for sexual dysfunction could safely be provided
The urologists noted that chemical castration—the hormonal suppression of testosterone—was widely used in the United States and Europe to facilitate the rehabilitation of sex offenders, often without the offender’s consent
Summary
The urologists have subsequently introduced this policy.[1] They offered two main arguments in support of it, which I present here in slightly reconstructed form. I would like to thank Mary Walker and audiences as the University of Oxford and Foundation Brocher, Geneva, for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (2017), 26, 143–158.
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