ABSTRACT
Physicians who choose to help “acceptable” patients while refusing to care for others fail to live up to their ethical duty as doctors, and within the medical profession such behavior must be identified and actively discouraged. Such actions on the part of a health professional are a failure of justice in medical care. A legal clause attached to laws that permit pharmacists, physicians, and/or other providers of health care not to provide certain medical services for reasons of religion or conscience. It can also involve parents withholding consent for particular treatments, such as reproductive care, for their children. In many cases, the clauses also permit health care providers to refuse to refer patients to unopposed providers.
