Ethical Considerations Surrounding Conscientious Objection

Ethical Considerations Surrounding Conscientious Objection
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Over the recent years, the evolution of conscientious objections has become a central concern amongst health care providers. The refusal to attend to clients based on beliefs and values devoid of professional judgment sums up unprofessional conduct. This paper explores the ethical considerations surrounding conscientious objection in healthcare.
The main issue is subjecting the patients to a monopolistic structure that the health professionals willingly chose to join. In this regard, health care delivery and the medical system in which they attend to patients is compromised. This is evident in the ongoing controversies between the government-funded healthcare benefits by private institutions as it is illogical for the public, corporate entities, and civic space to embrace similar rights and responsibilities like the private spaces whereby personal beliefs and limitations do not interfere with professional practice. These emerging differences exacerbate the highly polarized topic in a world that has embraced liberal mindsets. Furthermore, medical ethics guiding medical doctors’ associations dictate that specific exercises can corrupt health care professionals’ integrity and morals. However, conscientious objectors argue that it is considered unethical to deny conscientious objectors the sufficient capacity to question the professional conscience of health care practitioners who refuse to provide certain services. In essence, it reduces diversity in the health care professions and constrains the conscientious objectors to an unfair, unequal, and unjust system that embodies serious risks, threats to ethical integrity (Shanawani, 2016).
However, in the recent past, the courts have made great strides in addressing conscientious objection. Among them is the reliability view, whereby a conscientious objector health professional can legally transfer the eligible patient to a non-conscientious objector doctor. Another ethical consideration is embedded on whether it is morally...