From Dartmouth: Religion and medical ethics

Handb Clin Neurol. 2013;118:79-89. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-444-53501-6.00006-8.

Religion and medical ethics.

Green RM.

Source

Department of Religion, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA. Electronic address: ronald.m.green@Dartmouth.EDU.

Abstract

Religious traditions of medical ethics tend to differ from more secular approaches by stressing limitations on autonomous decision-making, by more positively valuing the experience of suffering, and by drawing on beliefs and values that go beyond empiric verification. I trace the impact of these differences for some of the world's great religious traditions with respect to four issues: (1) religious conscientious objection to medical treatments; (2) end-of life decision-making, including euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and the withholding or withdrawing of life-sustaining treatments; (3) definitions of moral personhood (defining life's beginning and end); and (4) human sexuality.