Query:

I don’t get it about protection of conscience for medical workers.  Why would anyone think doctors should be allowed to refuse to give medical care to people with whose beliefs they disagree?

Reply:

No one thinks doctors should be allowed to do that:  That’s not what’s being debated.  The question isn’t about medical care – that is, treating illnesses and furthering health -- but about other things doctors are sometimes asked to do.

For example, a physician who is asked to perform an abortion or kill a postnatal patient might refuse to do so because it isn’t medical care and he rightly considers it a violation of his moral and medical duty to promote life and health.

Such are the times that killing sometimes is described as medical care, just as abortions are sometimes described as reproductive services, infanticide is sometimes described as after-birth abortion, pregnancy is sometimes described as a disease, and babies in the womb are sometimes described as parasites.  This is spin.  Don’t be taken in.