Largely as artifacts of the abortion wars, at least 45 states have 'conscience clauses' on their books - laws that balance a physician's conscientious objection to performing an abortion with the profession's obligation to afford all patients nondiscriminatory access to services. In most cases, the provision of a referral satisfies one's professional obligations. But in recent years, with the abortion debate increasingly at the center of wider discussions about euthanasia, assisted suicide, reproductive technology, and embryonic stem-cell research, nurses and pharmacists have begun demanding not only the same right of refusal, but also - because even a referral, in their view, makes one complicit in the objectionable act - a much broader freedom to avoid facilitating a patient's choices.
