ArticleBioethics2016
A Defence of Conscientious Objection in Medicine: A Reply to Schuklenk and Savulescu.
Article in Bioethics, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Reflections on Conscientious Objection in Australia Through an Ethic of Solidarity.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2026Article
- Ethical perspectives of obstetricians and gynecologists on induced abortion and conscientious objection in Türkiye: a phenomenological study.BMC medical ethics · 2026Article
- Democratizing Conscientious Refusal in Healthcare.HEC forum : an interdisciplinary journal on hospitals' ethical and legal issues · 2024Article
- Should Physicians Be Permitted to Refuse Follow-Up Care to Patients Who Have Received an Organ Transplant Through Organ Trafficking?Transplant international : official journal of the European Society for Organ Transplantation · 2023Article
- Referral vs Transfer of Care: Ethical Options When Values Differ.The Linacre quarterly · 2022Article
- Conscientious Objection and Physician-Employees.HEC forum : an interdisciplinary journal on hospitals' ethical and legal issues · 2021Article
- Conscientious objection to abortion: why it should be a specified legal right for doctors in South Korea.BMC medical ethics · 2020Article
- Ethical arguments against coercing provider participation in MAiD (medical assistance in dying) in Ontario, Canada.BMC medical ethics · 2020Article
- Too much safety? Safeguards and equal access in the context of voluntary assisted dying legislation.BMC medical ethics · 2020Article
- Conscience-based refusal of patient care in medicine: a consequentialist analysis.Theoretical medicine and bioethics · 2019Article
- Preventing conscientious objection in medicine from running amok: a defense of reasonable accommodation.Theoretical medicine and bioethics · 2019Article
- A review and analysis of new Italian law 219/2017: 'provisions for informed consent and advance directives treatment'.BMC medical ethics · 2019Review
- Conscientious objection to intentional killing: an argument for toleration.BMC medical ethics · 2018Article
- Abortion and conscientious objection: rethinking conflicting rights in the Mexican context.Global bioethics = Problemi di bioetica · 2018Article
- Rationing conscience.Journal of medical ethics · 2017Article
- Doctors Have no Right to Refuse Medical Assistance in Dying, Abortion or Contraception.Bioethics · 2017Article
- Same same but different: why we should care about the distinction between professionalism and ethics.BMC medical ethics · 2016Article
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In a recent (2015) Bioethics editorial, Udo Schuklenk argues against allowing Canadian doctors to conscientiously object to any new euthanasia procedures approved by Parliament. In this he follows Julian Savulescu's 2006 BMJ paper which argued for the removal of the conscientious objection clause in the 1967 UK Abortion Act. Both authors advance powerful arguments based on the need for uniformity of service and on analogies with reprehensible kinds of personal exemption. In this article I want to defend the practice of conscientious objection in publicly-funded healthcare systems (such as those of Canada and the UK), at least in the area of abortion and end-of-life care, without entering either of the substantive moral debates about the permissibility of either. My main claim is that Schuklenk and Savulescu have misunderstood the special nature of medicine, and have misunderstood the motivations of the conscientious objectors. However, I acknowledge Schuklenk's point about differential access to lawful services in remote rural areas, and I argue that the health service should expend more to protect conscientious objection while ensuring universal access.
Indexed as
Identifiers
26659648What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.