Abram Brummett, Marlee Mason-Maready, Victoria Whiting
{"title":"Catholic Hospitals Should Permit Physicians to Provide Emergency Contraception to Rape Victims as an Act of Conscientious Provision.","authors":"Abram Brummett, Marlee Mason-Maready, Victoria Whiting","doi":"10.1177/00243639221098227","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>While many Catholic hospitals permit the prescription of the emergency contraception drug levonorgestrel for rape victims, some continue to prohibit this practice as a matter of institutional conscience. While the standard approach to this issue has been to offer an argument that levonorgestrel either is or is not morally permissible, we have taken a different tack. We begin by briefly describing and acknowledging that reasonable disagreement exists on this question (part one), and then arguing that the reasonable disagreement itself can serve as a compelling basis for Catholic leadership at hospitals that prohibit emergency contraception for rape victims to accommodate physicians who wish to provide levonorgestrel as a matter of conscience (part two). We end by anticipating and responding to some objections.</p>","PeriodicalId":44238,"journal":{"name":"Linacre Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10009144/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Linacre Quarterly","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00243639221098227","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2022/5/20 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"MEDICAL ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
While many Catholic hospitals permit the prescription of the emergency contraception drug levonorgestrel for rape victims, some continue to prohibit this practice as a matter of institutional conscience. While the standard approach to this issue has been to offer an argument that levonorgestrel either is or is not morally permissible, we have taken a different tack. We begin by briefly describing and acknowledging that reasonable disagreement exists on this question (part one), and then arguing that the reasonable disagreement itself can serve as a compelling basis for Catholic leadership at hospitals that prohibit emergency contraception for rape victims to accommodate physicians who wish to provide levonorgestrel as a matter of conscience (part two). We end by anticipating and responding to some objections.