The Right of Conscience

Crosswalk ^ | 26 May 05 | Albert Mohler

[Servant of the 9]

This is an issue of the right of government to set standards for issuing a license, in this case on to dispense drugs, but it could just as well be a driving or hunting license.

If you want to work in a government regulated occupation, or engage in a government licensed behavior, you have to follow the rules. If you don't like them, do something else or live somewhere else.

So9

[xzins]

How is this different, then, since doctors are also licensed, from requiring all doctors to perform abortions, even if against their conscience?

[muir_redwoods]

"How is this different, then, since doctors are also licensed, from requiring all doctors to perform abortions, even if against their conscience?"

Doctors have historically and reasonably limited their practice. Certainly not every doctor does surgery or psychiatry and there is a well established notion that one has to se a specialist for many medical specialties. My GP isn't in the abortion busines and many ob/gyns probably aren't certified for the surgery involved either.

Whether the choice to limit a practice is ethically based or not need not come up.

[xzins]

Let's narrow it a bit, then, to make are illustration be a closer parallel.

Why not require all ob/gyn's, since they're licensed, to perform abortions, whether against their conscience or not?

[muir_redwoods]

I believe that some medical schools do require it for training since it may be a necessary procedure to save the mother's life. Learning the procedure may already be a requirement for licensing in some states but I simply don't know.

It would seem that some MD's ethically opposed to abortion may countenance it if the choice was to save the mother's life. It does seem different from an elective abortion to me.

Remember, it may be a fine point but dispensing an abortifacient is different from performing an abortion since it is not the Pharmacist that is taking the pill.