Comment 17 by DocWebster

Medical professionals are supposed to be basing their medical opinions upon medical science. Furthermore every reason they perform or do not perform a medical procedure should be based solely on medical science. If they can't perform within those confines they should not be medical professionals. If they decline to practice their profession in such a manner they are committing malpractice. There are no allowances here, you are a medical professional who performs by medical standards or you're not a medical professional, that's the end of the argument.

I think that as atheist we might need to concede that there is no ultimate right or wrong, but that everything we wish to see in society is a result of our own prejudices and how we wish others to see the world and to act. Taking the example of forcing a catholic doctor to perform an abortion:

If it were illegal to perform an abortion, yet as an atheist you thought it in the best interest of the mother and valued the life of the mother over the non-life of the growing non-human blob, would you not be compelled to perform an abortion. Now what if you were told that even admitting you would do this means that you can't be a doctor?

And yet, this in its opposite extreme is what some people advocate: unless you as a doctor are willing to perform everything that is mandated for you to perform, you cannot be a doctor.

Or what if it becomes acceptable to euthanize. Should every doctor be compelled to do that if they were asked?

I think that the idea of being pragmatic in legislation as well as in enforcement of legislation is an idea that is still to be realized in its full and may be the best way forward. Perhaps we are too caught up in finding a coherent philosophy and legal system and not realising that every system has its flaws. We can only hope to progress to a stage where laws, although not being attributable to any greater moral enforcement, are laws which seem agreeable and have pragmatic alternatives where there is a grey area.