Conscientious objection: Understanding the right of conscience in health and healthcare practice

Abstract

In situations of moral gravitas, healthcare professionals are largely protected in the Western world to invoke their right to conscientiously object to providing care that conflicts with their personal, moral, and religious beliefs. However, making a conscientious objection needs to be predicated by an understanding of conscience, and knowledge of conscience is largely absent in definition as well as discourse surrounding conscientious objection in healthcare practice. Moreover, current definitions of health do not place emphasis on the ethical well-being of patients as well as care providers. Exploring health as an ethical condition of wellness in the light of conscientious healthcare provision will be addressed in my paper. I will also discuss how a distance from conscience in conscientious objection could compromise a healthcare professional's right to conscientious objection, if the fundamental, human right to conscience is not protected in the first place, supported by a focus on the importance of health as a state of ethical well-being.