Catholic institutions should let non-Catholic docs prescribe birth control, say OUWB professor, student
Non-Catholic physicians should be permitted to write prescriptions for birth control in secular institutions, according to a new article by an OUWB assistant professor and medical student.
The article, published in September in The Journal of Clinical Ethics, is co-authored by Abram Brummett, Ph.D., assistant professor, and Eric James, a third-year medical student.
The authors essentially argue that non-Roman Catholic physicians, or willing Catholic physicians, should be able to write prescriptions for birth control in Roman Catholic institutions — without fear of being fired — just as Roman Catholic physicians practicing in non-secular institutions may refuse to perform certain medical procedures that violate their religious beliefs.
Brummett and James say the discussion isn’t about the merits of birth control, but about treatment of non-Roman Catholics who want to provide what they view as the best possible patient care while working in a Catholic system.
“The asymmetry debate points out that there is an inconsistency of conscience protection,” says Brummett.
“For example, Catholic physicians working in a non-Catholic hospital are legally protected from refusing to do certain things for reasons of conscience that a hospital might want them to do. That does not apply to a non-Catholic physician working in a Catholic hospital.”
(Only partial stories are posted here with hopes to provide a brief overview and introduction to my most recent work. The full version of this story may be found on the OUWB website here.)
