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The Right To Conscience Vs. The Right To Die: Physician-Assisted Suicide, Catholic Hospitals, And The Rising Threat To Institutional Free Exercise In Healthcare, Zachary R. Carstens
The Right To Conscience Vs. The Right To Die: Physician-Assisted Suicide, Catholic Hospitals, And The Rising Threat To Institutional Free Exercise In Healthcare, Zachary R. Carstens
Pepperdine Law Review
An imminent conflict is developing between religious healthcare institutions opposed to physician-assisted death (PAD) and their healthcare employees who wish to offer PAD to their patients. When these interests clash, institutional conscience claims must prevail over doctors’ desires and patients’ demands. This article catalogues the incomplete patchwork of conscience protections guaranteed to American healthcare workers and institutions, as well as the swiftly accelerating wave of PAD legalization sweeping the states. The article documents the tactical vocabulary—deployed with nearly identical language in every state PAD statute—that conspicuously anticipates con-science objections from the massive, and staunchly anti-PAD, Catholic healthcare system. Notably, in …