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Abstract

Opponents of conscientious objection in healthcare, such as Savulescu, argue that healthcare professionals cannot have a right to conscientiously object to provide professional services, because such a right would be incompatible with their professional obligations. Defenders of conscientious objection in healthcare typically respond to this line of argument by describing the professional obligations of healthcare professionals in a ‘top-down’ manner – making generalizations about the healthcare professions and the ways in which these are organized, and deriving claims about individual professional obligations from these generalizations which are compatible with a right to conscientiously object. I argue that such approaches don’t succeed in grounding individual professional obligations. What we need to do instead is to approach this issue ‘bottom up’. The best way to determine what exactly the professional obligations of healthcare professionals are, and to determine whether or not these are compatible with a right to conscientiously object is to focus our attention on the issue of how individual professional obligations are acquired in the healthcare professions. When we do this we arrive at some surprising results, which I outline.

Forthcoming events

The epidemiology of periportal fibrosis in the context of intestinal schistosomiasis

Monday, 09 October 2023, 1pm to 2pm @ BDI/OxPop Building seminar rooms

Defeating Meningitis by 2023 Global Roadmap

Monday, 16 October 2023, 1pm to 2pm @ BDI/OxPop Building seminar room 1

OxPop Festival of Global Health - The Cancer Conflict

Thursday, 19 October 2023, 5pm to 8pm @ Richard Doll Lecture Theatre, Richard Doll Building, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford, OX3 7LF

Cancer Treatments: trust and information

Chronic infections and risk of NCDs in Chinese adults

Monday, 30 October 2023, 1pm to 2pm @ BBDI/OxPop Building seminar rooms

Metabolomics and diabetes in CKB and UKB

Thursday, 02 November 2023, 12pm to 1pm @ BDI/OxPop Building LG seminar room 0