Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T00:35:40.526Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Referral in the Wake of Conscientious Objection to Abortion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Carolyn McLeod
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Currently, the preferred accommodation for conscientious objection to abortion in medicine is to allow the objector to refuse to accede to the patient's request so long as the objector refers the patient to a physician who performs abortions. The referral part of this arrangement is controversial, however. Pro-life advocates claim that referrals make objectors complicit in the performance of acts that they, the objectors, find morally offensive. McLeod argues that the referral requirement is justifiable, although not in the way that people usually assume.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 30 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Addelson, Kathryn Pyne 1991. Impure thoughts: Essays on philosophy, feminism, and ethics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth. 2005. So you want to live in a free society? (5): Common property, common carriers, and the case of the conscientious objecting pharmacist. Left2Right, August 2. http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2005/08/so_you_want_to_.html.Google Scholar
Bachrach, Susan. 2004. In the name of public health–‐Nazi racial hygiene. New England Journal of Medicine 351:417–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benjamin, Martin. 1990. Splitting the difference: Compromise and integrity in ethics and politics. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.Google Scholar
Blustein, Jeffrey. 1993. Doing what the patient orders: Maintaining integrity in the doctor‐patient relationship. Bioethics 7 (4): 289–314.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
CARAL (Canadian Abortion Rights Action League, now Canadians for Choice [or CFC]). 2003. Protecting abortion rights in Canada. Available through CFC at http://www.canadiansforchoice.ca/cfcresources.html.Google Scholar
Dwyer, Susan. 1997. Understanding the problem of abortion. In The problem of abortion, ed. Dwyer, Susan and Feinberg, Joel. 3rd ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Jaggar, Alison M. 1997. Regendering the U.S. abortion debate. Journal of Social Philosophy 28: 127–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaggar, Alison M.Forthcoming. Abortion rights and gender justice worldwide. In Abortion: Three Perspectives, ed. Devine, Phillip, Jaggar, Alison, Tooley, Michael, and Wolf‐Devine, Celia. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Little, Margaret Olivia. 1999. Abortion, intimacy, and the duty to gestate. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 2 (3): 295–312.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Little, Margaret Olivia. 2005. The moral permissibility of abortion. In Contemporary debates in applied ethics, ed. Cohen, Andrew. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, Catriona. 1992. Abortion and embodiment. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 70 (2): 136–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, Mike W. 2000. Meaningful work: Rethinking professional ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
May, Simon Cabulea 2005. Principled compromise and the abortion controversy. Philosophy and Public Affairs 33 (4): 317–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McLean, G. R., and Jenkins, Trefor. 2003. The Steve Biko affair: A case study in medical ethics. Developing World Bioethics 3 (1): 77–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLeod, Carolyn. 2002. Self‐trust and reproductive autonomy. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miles, Steven H. 2004. Abu Ghraib: Its legacy for military medicine. Lancet 364: 725–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Purdy, Laura. 1996. Reproducing persons: Issues in feminist bioethics. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Sherwin, Susan. 1992. No longer patient: Feminist ethics and health care. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Thomson, Judith Jarvis 1971. A defense of abortion. Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1): 47–66.Google Scholar
Wicclair, Mark. 2000. Conscientious objection in medicine. Bioethics 14 (3): 205–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar