Positive and Negative Rights of Conscience: Balancing When Rights Conflict.

Conscientious objection (CO) in medicine has been seen as a negative right, the right to be free from the intervention of others, so as not to be coerced into doing a medical intervention that the objector thinks is immoral. Arguments are now becoming more common calling for protection for the positive right of conscience, the right to perform interventions by the healthcare provider (HCP) even when it goes against the policy of the healthcare institution (HCI) or the law. Rights create obligations.

Vaccine Mandates: Weighing the Common Good vs Personal Conscience and Autonomy.

COVID-19 is a serious illness with significant morbidity and mortality. Vaccines to immunize against it were developed in record time. Mandates followed.

Conscientious Objection, Not Refusal: The Power of a Word.

Unlabelled: Conscientious objection (CO) in medicine grew out of the need to protect healthcare providers who objected to performing abortions after the decision in the 1970s which has since over time expanded to include sterilization, contraception, in vitro fertilization, stem cell research, and end-of-life issues. Since 2006, there has been a growing amount of published literature arguing for the denial of CO. Over the last three years, there has also been an increase in calling this conscientious refusal.

Stay-at-Home Orders and the Common Good.

COVID-19, also known as SARS-CoV-2, began in Wuhan, China, late November or early December, 2019 and has since spread rapidly throughout the globe, being declared a health emergency of international concern a month later and a pandemic on March 11, 2020. It is highly contagious with a death rate up to twelve times that of the flu, even higher where the healthcare systems have been strained. To reduce the spread, states have implemented stay-at-home declarations, limiting social gatherings, and closing churches.

Fertility Technology Research and the Use of Human Beings as Property.

Unlabelled: In January 2020, an article in the exploring whether human embryos could be obtained via uterine lavage and to compare their quality to embryos created via fertilization. Any embryo that was not removed via lavage was either prevented from implanting by giving the women injections of gonadotropin releasing hormone antagonists or aborted with either methotrexate or uterine curettage. This research was done using women in Mexico, who were paid the equivalent of over two months' wages and who signed away their rights to their embryos, including agreeing to have an abortion if implantation did occur.