Many within the medical intelligentsia want to install a “patient’s rights” approach to healthcare. Under this view, if a procedure is legal and it will fulfill a patient’s health or lifestyle desire, the doctor must provide the intervention (or find a doctor who will)–even when doing so would violate the MD’s religious beliefs and/or violate her moral conscience.

The Wall Street Journal editorialized in favor of the right of the Christian cake baker’s right to refuse his services in celebration of a same sex marriage. From the editorial:

A ruling for Colorado could encourage other government burdens on First Amendment religious rights, especially in this era of right-left cultural polarization. Could the state compel Catholic doctors to perform abortions, or require Catholic adoption services to place children with same-sex couples?

As Justice Kennedy noted in Obergefell, the “Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.” If this applies to same-sex marriage, which isn’t mentioned in the Constitution, it certainly ought to apply to religious belief, which is there in black and white.

Absolutely. In fact, I will be watching this case very closely precisely because of its likely impact on medical conscience rights.

The law today generally protects medical conscience in the areas of abortion and assisted suicide, although not pharmacists dispensing contraception. But those protections are under intellectual assault in bioethics in preparation for eventual attempts to change the law.

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