In an article published in Dignitas, a journal of The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity, Andrew Kubick, Research Fellow with RFI’s National Center for Religious Freedom Education, offers a glimpse into the subject of positive conscience claims, which “demand the freedom to commit an act that one’s conscience judges to be good.” He reflects on this subject in the healthcare context, especially in cases where a medical practitioner’s claim runs up against a hospital’s institutional identity.

“Many people,” observes Kubick, “are familiar with cases when a healthcare professional advances a negative claim of conscience, that is to say, when the professional refuses to perform or participate in a service that he judges is evil.” But history provides many examples “that both negative and positive claims of conscience can result in coercion, discrimination, and even disciplinary action by those in authority.”

Kubick presented a version of this article at the 2022 Annual Conference of The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity convened last summer.

Read the full article: Who Decides? Resolving Conflicts between Individual Conscience and Institutional Identity.