Wednesday, April 3, 2013

The uneasy (and changing) relationship of health care and religion in our legal system

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23546737


 2013 Apr 2. [Epub ahead of print]

The uneasy (and changing) relationship of health care and religion in our legal system.

Source

University of St. Thomas School of Law, 1000 LaSalle Ave., Minneapolis, MN, 55403, USA, rkvischer@stthomas.edu.

Abstract

This article provides a brief introduction to the interplay between law and religion in the health care context. First, I address the extent to which the commitments of a faith tradition may be written into laws that bind all citizens, including those who do not share those commitments. Second, I discuss the law's accommodation of the faith commitments of individual health care providers-hardly a static inquiry, as the degree of accommodation is increasingly contested. Third, I expand the discussion to include institutional health care providers, arguing that the legal system's resistance to accommodating the morally distinct identities of institutional providers reflects a short-sighted view of the liberty of conscience. Finally, I offer some tentative thoughts about why these dynamics become even more complicated in the context of Islamic health care providers.

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