Increasingly, physicians are being asked to provide technical services that many (in some cases, most) believe are morally wrong or inconsistent with their beliefs about the meaning and purposes of medicine. This controversy has sparked persistent debate over whether practitioners should be permitted to decline participation in a variety of legal practices, most notably physician-assisted suicide and abortion. These debates have become heavily politicized, and some of the key words and phrases are being used without a clear understanding of their meaning. In this essay, I endeavor, firstly, to clarify the meaning of some of these terms: conscience, conscientious action, professional judgment, conscientious objection, conscience clauses, civil disobedience, and tolerance. I argue that use of the term conscientious objection to describe these refusals by health care professionals is mistaken and confusing. Secondly, relying on a proper understanding of the moral and technical character of medical judgment, the optimal deference that the state and markets ought to have toward professions, and general principles of Lockean tolerance for a diversity of practices and persons in a flourishing, pluralistic, democratic society, I offer a defense of tolerance with respect to the deeply held convictions of physicians and other health care professionals who hold minority views on contested but legal medical practices.

中文翻译：

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保健方面的良心，宽容和多元化。

越来越多地要求医生提供许多（在某些情况下，大多数）认为在道德上是错误的或与他们对医学含义和目的的信念不一致的技术服务。这场争论引发了关于是否应允许从业者拒绝参加各种法律实践（尤其是医生协助的自杀和堕胎）的持续辩论。这些辩论已被严重政治化，某些关键词和短语在使用时并未清楚其含义。在本文中，我首先努力澄清其中一些术语的含义：良心，良心行动，专业判断，良心反对，良心条款，公民抗命和宽容。我认为，出于良心拒服兵役一词的使用描述医疗保健专业人员的这些拒绝是错误和令人困惑的。其次，依靠对医学判断的道德和技术特征的正确理解，国家和市场对职业应有的最佳尊重，以及洛克恩对蓬勃发展，多元化的实践和个人的宽容的一般原则，在民主社会中，我对医生和其他卫生保健专业人士的根深蒂固的信念表示宽容，他们对有争议但合法的医疗实践持少数意见。