Religion and medical ethics

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.