We live in a culture that places a very high value on personal freedom, maximal autonomy, and instant service. More and more, the trend is to put patient autonomy over and above the bioethical principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence, especially when we are dealing with issues that are ideologically promoted.
“Prioritizing competing values is inherent in every family medicine encounter.”1 Although prioritizing competing values is important, it is even more important that persons who carry great responsibility be allowed to exercise their profession with the utmost integrity of conscience and personal responsibility. Thus, the medical profession ought to remain neutral and incoercible by any new ideological trend that might crop up. Only in this way will professionals remain trustworthy and the public be truly protected.
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