Fastlegers reservasjonsadgang – hyklersk eller velbegrunnet?

Authors

  • Morten Magelssen Senter for medisinsk etikk, Institutt for helse og samfunn, Universitetet i Oslo
  • Gard Olav Langeland Institutt for global helse og samfunnsmedisin, Universitetet i Bergen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5324/eip.v8i2.1852

Keywords:

medical ethics, natural law, conscientious objection, freedom of conscience

Abstract

I debatten om fastlegers adgang til reservasjon mot henvisning til abort hevdet noen at reservasjonslegenes ønske er selvmotsigende og utilstrekkelig begrunnet. Det ble hevdet at reservasjonslegenes foreslåtte balansegang – å nekte henvisning til abort, men i stedet legge til rette for at en kollega henviser («kollegahenvisning») – er etisk inkonsistent og innebærer et særegent etisk hykleri, som har blitt kalt «de rene henders etikk». Ved nærmere ettersyn viser det seg at denne viktige kritikken har brodd mot noen måter å praktisere reservasjon på, men ikke mot alle. Selv om den konkrete saken fikk en løsning som ikke innebærer reservasjonsadgang, er anklagen om «de rene henders etikk» prinsipielt interessant og kan anspore en diskusjon om samvittighetsfrihetens og toleransens grenser, et tema som vil vende tilbake til offentlighetens søkelys i stadig nye former.

Nøkkelord: medisinsk etikk, naturrett, reservasjonsrett, samvittighetsfrihet

English summary: Conscientious objection for general practitioners – hypocritical or well-justified?

In the Norwegian debate about General Practitioners’ (GP) right to conscientious objection to referrals for abortion, some claimed that the GPs’ request was self-contradictory and inadequately justified. It was claimed that the GPs’ suggested balancing act, that is, refusing referral for abortion, while instead facilitating referral by a colleague, is ethically inconsistent and implies a particular kind of ethical hypocrisy, termed ‘the ethics of clean hands’. Upon closer inspection, however, it turns out that this important critique applies to some ways of practicing conscientious refusal, but not to all. Even though this particular case was resolved in a way that does not involve toleration of conscientious objection, the charge of ‘ethics of clean hands’ is fundamentally interesting, and may spur a discussion of freedom of conscience and the limits of tolerance, a topic that will be recurring in the public square in ever new shapes.

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«etikkbølgen» i yrkesutdanning og -praksis

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Published

2014-11-19

How to Cite

Magelssen, M., & Langeland, G. O. (2014). Fastlegers reservasjonsadgang – hyklersk eller velbegrunnet?. Etikk I Praksis - Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics, 8(2), 69–81. https://doi.org/10.5324/eip.v8i2.1852

Issue

No. 2 (2014)

Section

Artikler - Articles

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