this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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Look I'm gonna get a lot of hate for this but let's try and be a little nuance about this.
I don't think it is moral to force someone to do something they don't want to do for whatever reason. Eg u shouldn't be allowed to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to completion. Nor should u be forced to help said person end that pregnancy if you don't want to. I think if u don't want to end it you should be forced to give them the contact of someone who will.
If you are going to force someone to medically treat someone for something you don't want to do, u by definition do not believe it is beneficial to them and is thus a violation of ur oath.
If you become a medical profession, do your job. End of story. Leave your personal crap at the door or get a new job.
If u become a soldier do ur job leave ur personal crap at the door or get a new job. U just justified the actions of the Nazis "I'm just following orders".
A soldier's job includes disobeying illegal orders. That's the law. Try again.
Prior to the Nuremberg trials individual responsibility for disobeying unlawful orders was an implicit judgement and not explicitly stated.
And if we look at examples of people using the defence of I was disobeying orders due to them being in violation of international law they got arrested and locked up for the rest of their life (see David McBride).
It's good to know that we have advanced as a society. We're talking about now, not 80 years ago.
You also seem to be under the impression that making a "correct" choice would be without consequences. It would be nice if the moral or legal choice always had positive consequences for the chooser, but that's not always the case. That doesn't chance the morality or legality of the choice. Yes, soldiers have been persecuted for disobeying an illegal order; either legally or socially; but that doesn't change their duty.
(Also, David McBride was arrested for releasing confidential documents, something that is very much illegal. We can debate the morality, but that's not relevant here because it's not remotely related to a soldier refusing to follow illegal orders.)
A soldier following an illegal order may lead to people dying unnecessarily, so they are duty bound to not follow illegal orders. A doctor choosing to not treat patients because they don't like something about them may lead to people dying unnecessarily, so they are duty bound to treat all patients.
A doctor's agency does not supersede another's right to live. A doctor doesn't get to choose who lives or dies; and yes, even requiring that the doctor refer the patient to a different doctor would result in people dying.