GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: Are tribunals the solution to disruptive conscientious objectors?

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BioEdge: Are tribunals the solution to disruptive conscientious objectors?

BioEdge: Are tribunals the solution to disruptive conscientious objectors?

Bioedge

Are tribunals the solution to disruptive conscientious objectors?

by Michael Cook | 1 Oct 2016 |

While some bioethicists believe that conscientious objection has no place in modern medicine, others feel that they could be accommodated by setting up tribunals. Here are three proposed this year in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Establish military-style tribunals. In times of conscription, military tribunals assess whether a pleas of conscientious objection in legitimate or not. Why not follow this model for healthcare workers, asks Steve Clarke, of Charles Sturt University (Australia), in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Military tribunals used to ask whether the objector would serve in a non-combatant role. Some agreed to support the war effort by serving in non-combatant roles; others would only perform community service. The former were actually making an indirect causal contribution to the war effort to which they objected. Clarke believes that the same question should be asked of doctors:

“A doctor who objects to conducting abortions, and also objects to making an indirect causal contribution to abortion, but who currently works for an organisation in which abortions are conducted, should be helped to find work with a different organisation, where abortions are not conducted. The objections of a doctor who conscientiously refuses to conduct abortions, but who has no objection to making an indirect causal contribution to the conduct of abortion are best dealt with by finding that doctor other duties to perform, within the current organisation that she is employed in.”

This argument will succeed in forcing objectors with very strong convictions out of the public system and into private practice and those who remain and perform “non-combatant” roles will be burdened with moral complicity.

Establish medical conscientious objection review boards. Robert Card, of the University of Rochester Medical Center (US), argues in the JME that doctors need to give “public reasons” for conscientious objection. This would rule out even “effective referral” for a procedure. Their reasons need to be solidly grounded, empirically and ethically. This rules out reasons based on prejudice (sexism or racism) or sincere moral convictions.

This leads him to propose review boards staffed by medical professionals, bioethicists and lawyers. If a doctor establishes that there are sufficient reasons for his objections, he would be licenced to practice medicine as an official conscientious objector. If doctor who is not a licenced CO refuses to do a procedure, he could be punished.

Earlier in the year, Jonathan A. Hughes, of Keele University (UK), proposed the establishment of Conscientious Objection Tribunals in the JME. Doctors would appear before a board which would assess whether their objections were reasonable and what arrangements he would make for patients who requested a procedure to which he objected. If approved, the tribunal would licence them for five years at a time. No conscientious objection would be allowed without a licence.

Keele is less specific about the composition of the tribunals. However, they should include members of the public and potential service users. He feels that it is important that it be a face-to-face examination rather than a bureaucratic procedure.

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/are-tribunals-the-solution-to-disruptive-conscientious-objectors/12026#sthash.njs7fL6s.dpuf

Bioedge

Yes, the American president is the most powerful man in the world. Yes, he has the launch codes. But there is something unhealthy in the preoccupation of the world’s media with the US presidential campaign at the expense of other world crises.

Donald Trump, who must be the worst major party candidate ever, seems to have incited violence at some of his rallies and has even made vague threats to Hillary Clinton. If you Google “Trump violence”, you will get 82,700,000 results. It’s a live issue, at least in the media.

Google “Duterte violence” and you will get only 971,000 results – about 1% of the figures for Trump. But Mr Duterte has incited thugs, vigilantes and police to kill drug dealers and since he took office on June 30. The Filipino president now has the blood of 3,500 of his own countrymen on his hands. And he is not a buffoon running for President. He is the President.

But it could get worse. This week he cheerfully compared himself to Hitler. “Hitler massacred three million Jews ... there’s three million drug addicts. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them,” he told a press conference. “You know my victims. I would like (them) to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.”

The number of murders in July, August and September is more or less equivalent to the number of civilians killed in Syria. Why doesn’t the world care? It’s probably because Duterte’s victims are drug addicts and dealers. Even if they are, they have a right to life and a right to justice. They are human beings; they are not scum.

The world is demanding the removal of Syria’s President Assad because of the atrocities committed by his regime. It’s time that world leaders called for the removal of President Duterte.