Ronit Y. Stahl, PhD
Fellow in the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy
University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
Abstract: “Conscience clause” legislation has proliferated in recent years, extending the legal rights of health care professionals to cite their personal religious or moral beliefs as a reason to opt out of performing specific procedures or caring for particular patients. Reproductive healthcare, LGBT healthcare, and end-of-life care are the most common arenas for refusal of services. Legislative protection for conscientious objection in healthcare emerged at the height of conscientious objection to military service, but has diverged significantly since then. Like the military's medical corps, which must treat enemy combatants, military chaplains are non-combatants who often navigate conflicting duties to their professional calling and to country. This talk used the experience of military chaplains—the clergy who voluntarily enlisted in the armed forces as religious officers—who grappled with conflicts of conscience during the Vietnam War to reconceptualize the relationship between conscientious objection and professional obligations and reconsider how medicine should handle religious refusals to provide care.
Medical Humanities Mondays Lecture Series
Location and Address
Room 501, Cathedral of Learning