Legal Question in Medical Malpractice in Iowa

Re: abortion referal vs. doctor's religious rights

Dear Doctor-2-b,

I like to know with whom I'm speaking before giving detailed advice. The answer to your question will depend upon the state you choose to practice. But you are probably correct a doctor has an obligation to use all reasonable means to assist the patient with medical care. If the means available are not within the doctors expertise then there is the obligation to refer the patient. Your morality has little to do with the decision you make that affect the patients health. If doctors were allowed to impose their own morality on patients our system of medicine would soon fall apart. Let's look at an example. What if every doctor thought each patient that used tobacco products was acting immorally by putting harmful substances in their body and therefore refused to treat any patient who used tobacco products? Would that make sense to you? Would the system of medicine as we now know it survive? Where would all the heart and lung diseased patients go for treatment? Should they be left on the sidewalk to suffer and die? Is that "medical decision" by those doctors in line with the hypocratic oath you will be asked to take? When did you last read the hypocratic oath?

If the doctor's morality is a viable component to the decision-making process of diagnosis, evaluation and treatment whose moral code should we apply? Yours? Your class-mates? The decisions you are making have nothing to do with your morality. They have to do with law (the collective wisdom of society). Will you also turn away every drug addict, tobacco user, spouse abuser, elder abuser, child abuser, criminal, and others you find morally reprehensible?

Where will you draw the line? Remember you decided to be a doctor to help people whether they were rich or poor, intellectually stimulated or not, based upon their health needs. The patients moral barometer has little to do with what's wrong with them medically and what you need to do to treat the condition.

If you want to assist society in issues of morality then join a church and become a priest, minister, pastor, rabbi, etc.

Steve Lombardi