When Conscience Is Attacked, the Ground Beneath Us Shakes

Many say the Canadian election last month achieved nothing, that the country is back to where it was before. There’s a lot of truth to this statement. The new seating map for Canada’s Parliament is almost a carbon copy of the old one.

But the election was far from inconsequential. The conscience rights of doctors suffered a major blow. During the campaign, every major national party in Canada refused to support doctors who decline to refer for procedures they consider harmful to patients or third parties.

Canada’s political leaders, it seems, have much to learn about freedom of conscience. I suspect the same is true of many politicians in the United States and elsewhere.

Moral and ethical reflection, making normative sense of the world and striving to live accordingly, is an essential part of being human. We all have a conscience: an inner radar that alerts us to right and wrong action. And we all wish to have the freedom to stand on our core convictions if push ever comes to shove. Yet, despite the value that all of us place on being free to follow our conscience, especially when we find ourselves in ethical minefields, this human right has been paid scant attention by courts and legislatures. Perhaps all of us, to varying degrees, have taken it for granted.

This neglect is costing us. If there is one form of freedom on which a liberal democracy stands or falls, it is the freedom to live in alignment with our core convictions, whether ethical, religious, or political. Yet the once-settled principle that we should not force others to betray their conscience—unless there is a compelling reason to do so—is being diluted across our society. This trend is troubling, and not only because of the harm to persons who violate their core convictions. Stifling conscience rights makes it harder to achieve the kind of society we say we want: one that is inclusive, free, diverse, and democratic.

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