We can’t condemn crimes that occurred in the past?
Let us know when you make up your mind 
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yeah it’s not that clear cut. A doctor does not study the intricacies of the law. that’s the responsibility of the hospital lawyer whose legal directive is now under question. and the hippocratic oath doesn’t cover those obligations.
Yes, it really is.
"First, Do No Harm.
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I have had a colonoscopy. One of the first things was a discussion of the risks (from both the procedure and the sedation), and signing of a consent form. Fuck the same with my wisdom teeth. It’s almost as if they know things can go wrong.
This guy was not only subjected to a procedure with well known risks without his consent, but also without his knowledge. What if he had a health condition that increased those risks? They could have fucking killed him. This was not, I repeat, not a life-or-death situation.
Seems pretty clear-cut to me.
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The key portion people are referring to is this one:
Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.
Performing a medically unnecessary procedure on someone in order to help the police incriminate him clearly violates that, even when it’s “just following orders” or “frightened for my job.” At the very least the doctor should lose his/her medical license, and there are also legitimate grounds for a ruinous lawsuit against the doctor.
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Exactly.
The proper response to “Ooh, but a lawyer and a judge said so!” is “So what? I have lawyers too; let’s go to court, because I’m not risking my reputation and my practice by doing something I know isn’t legal or ethical.”
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and yet, it is because you had the hospital’s lawyer advising on their legal responsibilities. you know, what the law requires.
even still (and i swear no one read the actual article) the doctors refused to do the procedure. one agreed. And even still the responsibility for the decision isn’t that easy to pin on him.
and what about the lawyer??? i’m sorry but why are y’all ignoring this key component of the situation?
What about the lawyer? Just because the doctor is sued and decertified doesn’t mean the lawyer gets off the hook for giving the orders or threatening the doctor’s job. Quite the opposite.
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The law doesn’t always equal less harmful.
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You have a nice day, now.
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No, you are just wrong. I am a doctor. What I can be required to do is to “respond to appropriate requests for treatment.” I cannot be forced to violate my ethical standards. This is how Catholic hospitals justfy refusing basic ob gyn services. Ironic with this being a Catholic hospital!
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That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time; no one held a gun to the head of the doctor who finally did perform the procedure. “He or she had no choice!” is a bullshit excuse for intolerable behavior.
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I don’t see the two doctors who refused to perform the surgery being prosecuted for breaking any law. If they were, I’d advocate against it.
On the flip side, neither a judge ordering you nor a lawyer advising you to break the law does makes breaking the law legal.
But as others have pointed out repeatedly, even if it was legal (I am not a lawyer, are you?) for the compliant doctor to perform the procedure, that does not make it right. There’s a reason, in fact somewhere in the neighborhood of 17 million very good reasons including approximately 6 million Jews, why “I was just following orders” is memorialized as a coward’s excuse for wrongdoing.
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Really? Since you know so much about the law, please cite the relevant statute.
Also, “hindsight” isn’t a verb.
You seem to be confusing the role of a lawyer — basically, an advisor about matters of law — with that of an absolute overlord.
I almost want to create a second account so I can heart this twice.
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Just like “the law” does not and cannot “require” any particular doctor to, for instance, perform an abortion, if that doctor doesn’t want to do it; in the same way the law does not and cannot require any doctor to drug and rape a prisoner. That’s simply not how search warrants work.
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Interestingly, that’s not in the modern Hippocratic oath. Even if it was, a sigmoidoscopy (or even colonoscopy) is not normally medically harmful. That doesn’t mean a physician who performs one for nonmedical reasons at the request of the local cops isn’t behaving unethically.
Does that somehow magically make the abuse of power and human rights “okay?”
No, it doesn’t, and obviously you already know that it doesn’t… so why even bother bringing it up?
For the last time, the Devil doesn’t need any ‘advocates.’
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Honestly “harm” or even “potential for harm” (which certainly exists) is not the issue here. Consent and patient autonomy are the relevant issues. “The cops said it was OK” does not pass muster, in my not-so-humble opinion.
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