Recently I read this article on an RN, call her Nurse Olona, who apparently has the habit of removing intra-uterine devices (IUDs) from patients without their consent. Her justification for these "accidents"?

"Having the IUD come out was a good thing [because] I personally do not like IUDs. I feel they are a type of abortion. I don't know how you feel about abortion, but I am against them. ...What the IUD does is take the fertilized egg and pushes it out of the uterus."

Expect this to happen more often when the new "provider conscience rule" comes into effect. The idea behind this regulation is to allow providers to deny services based upon their moral or religious beliefs. It would signal a grand new era in which health-care specialists' consciences need not be bound by arcane rules and regulations, and they will be free to treat whomever they will however they will. Everyone will be free to create the world they believe is right, unhindered by ethics.

Wait... did I just say unhindered by ethics?

The new "provider conscience" rules and the credo of Nurse Olona operate upon, or take advantage of, the fallacious notion that an individual's ethical beliefs ought to be unconditionally respected. It is an abuse of the "freedom of conscience" notion, in which an individual's judgment becomes so unbound by reality that freedom from conscience seems to be a more accurate definition of the phenomenon. Should we respect a doctor who turns away a patient because she is of "an inferior race"? Or the same doctor who turns away someone of the same race, but whom he fears "is of a deranged character"? After all, the doctor must hold this belief strongly, and we should always respect other people's beliefs. shouldn't we?

In the above examples it is incumbent upon the reader to question whether the doctor's actions or beliefs are in fact ethical, or even conscionable. It should also be apparent that belief is no foundation upon which to build ethical behavior. A belief, held temporarily, is always essential to act as a guide to moral action, but as soon as the belief becomes sacred it corrupts the intention for which it was devised. Beliefs are but tools used to model reality, and ought to be discarded as soon as they are deemed defective.

More on this later.