Debates about the ethics of health care and medical research in contemporary pluralistic democracies often arise partly from competing religious and secular values. Such disagreements raise challenges of balancing claims of religious liberty with claims to equal treatment in health care. This paper proposes several mid-level principles to help in framing sound policies for resolving such disputes. We develop and illustrate these principles, exploring their application to conscientious objection by religious providers and religious institutions, accommodation of religious priorities in biomedical (...) research, and treatment of patients’ religious views in doctor–patient encounters. Given that no sound set of guiding principles yields precise solutions for every policy dispute, we explore how morally sound democracies might deliberatively resolve such policy issues, following our proposed principles. Taken together and carefully interpreted, these principles may help in guiding difficult decision making in the indefinitely large realm where government, medical providers, and patients encounter problems concerning religion and medicine. (shrink)

I analyze the insights present in Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s seminal work, On Death and Dying that have laid the foundation for contemporary clinical bioethics as it is practiced by clinical ethics co...

Clinical ethics consultants should show bold moral courage in discharging their duties to patients, families, and healthcare providers. Given the corrosive impact on trust, and on the appropriate d...

To address certain seemingly irresolvable conflicts between patients and clinicians regarding treatment plans that are rooted in patients' religious or spiritual beliefs, Kuczewski (2007), in a ref...