If that’s what they were doing, I think it’s a great mistake for them to lump together elective and non-elective procedures into the same category. Beside the fact that a doctor performs them, they are not at all the same. Saving someone’s life is a morally good act regardless of who the person is or what their beliefs are. In the situation in the article, the very act the doctors are being asked to do is immoral.
Similarly, the Wisconsin University Law professor’s analgoy has no bearing:
"Imagine somebody who runs a store for maternity clothing who refuses to serve single women or gay women, because the owner believes that it is immoral for such a woman to have had sex, let alone to have a child.”
If the doctor’s refused to care for a single woman who was already pregnant, then this analogy might work. But they are refusing to help her get pregnant in the first place. This is an important difference.
I guess what it comes down to is that doctors should not refuse any service based on their evaluation of a particular patient’s sinful lifestyle. However, a doctor should not be required to perform a service which they believe in and of itself is immoral. The example from this article falls into the latter category, not the former.
