title: Religion and medical ethics.
abstract: Religious traditions of medical ethics tend to differ from more secular approaches by stressing limitations on autonomous decision-making, by more positively valuing the experience of suffering, and by drawing on beliefs and values that go beyond empiric verification. I trace the impact of these differences for some of the world's great religious traditions with respect to four issues: (1) religious conscientious objection to medical treatments; (2) end-of life decision-making, including euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and the withholding or withdrawing of life-sustaining treatments; (3) definitions of moral personhood (defining life's beginning and end); and (4) human sexuality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Religion, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA. Electronic address: ronald.m.green@Dartmouth.EDU.
authors.forename: Ronald M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Green
mesh_terms: D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006801:Humans; D012068:Religion and Medicine
keywords: defining death; end-of-life decision-making; euthanasia; human sexuality; medical ethics; personhood; physician-assisted suicide; religion; withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatments