One of the more converged, progressive and stupid Australian bioethicists would remove from doctors any moral agency and turn us into mere machines doing the wishes of the patient. Their method is to have a tribunal that will over rule our conscience, ethics, and morals.
As if a doctor is not human, and as if you can remove a pound of flesh without drawing blood. This is shredded by James Franklin in the Quadrant.
The essence of the document’s reasoning is contained in its opening paragraph:
“Healthcare practitioners’ primary obligations are towards their patients, not towards their own personal conscience. When the patient’s wellbeing (or best interest, or health) is at stake, healthcare practitioners’ professional obligations should normally take priority over their personal moral or religious views.”
That states the issue in exactly the wrong way. The opposition “patient’s interest” versus “personal conscience” is a false one, because the conscientious objectors take a different view of what is in the patient’s best interest, and they have reasons for doing so. Like any doctors, they are motivated by a desire to help patients. They believe that the procedures they refuse to perform are destructive of the patients’ interests, sometime destructive of the patients themselves. So they refuse to perform those operations. To contrast their concern for patients with “personal moral or religious views” is to wilfully misunderstand their motivations.
In the present environment, as codified in documents such as the Australian Nursing and Midwifery’s policy on conscientious objection, health professionals who object do not have an easy time but their position, in theory, is protected from retribution. The “consensus document” criticises the present “cost-free environment” and proposes the imposition of sanctions. That is where the demand that objecting doctors should compensate society by “providing public-benefitting services” comes in. They should also face tribunals to “test the sincerity, strength and the reasonability of healthcare practitioners’ moral objections”. Hiring authorities should be able to favour non-objecting doctors.
It is true that objectors should give some substantial reason for their refusal to perform procedures. “I don’t like it” or “It’s against my religion” won’t cut it. But everyone knows who the objectors mostly are – they are Catholics and other Christians who rely on a developed natural law philosophy of the intrinsic and irreducible worth of persons. It’s a debatable philosophy, but mere “personal belief” it isn’t. The reasons for it are public and long defended, and the tribunals that Savulescu demands to enforce conformity can consult the reasons instead of interrogating the recalcitrant doctors one by one.
This is bullying. It is coercive. I am sure the bioethicist would hate to be tried for heresy: he is no Christian (we would remove him from teaching duties, and pray for him) or Muslim (they would kill).
Heresy you say? Well from the comments at in a Aussie Paper (see the first link)… and yes, there are times when saying this is akin to the NSDAP enforcing orthodoxy is the correct approach.
All the criticisms of Mr Fox appear to be based on some ” fact ” that there is a conflict between conscience ( including an ethical responsibility to follow truth ) and science ( truth of scientific facts ) . There are many examples where ” science ” and it’s consensus has been completely wrong , including thalidomide , the Dalkon shield , the combined oral contraceptive , asbestos , eugenics , etc , etc , etc , and yet many would appear to demand that doctors ignore their conscience and truth and follow the consensus of ” science ” . Good luck with that thought and philosophy . I am supposed to feel compelled to submit my patients to harm or even death just because the government law at the time decreed so . Sounds all too familiar . Instead of Jewish scientists being ostracised , we now find orthodox Catholic being thrown out of discussion ( as per Andrew Denton’s threats ) .
Yes, there are things I wont do. Assess people for fitness to choose to kill themselves (euthanasia) or their child (termination) are examples. I also won’t assess people for fitness to understand that they are being tortured or executed.
Because I am a human first, and a doctor second. And because you cannot call immoral acts a service. And because your offense ant my conscience is high praise.