The June 2016 issue of the Journal of Pain & Symptom Management includes “U.S. Physicians’ Opinions About Accommodating Religiously Based Requests for Continued Life-Sustaining Treatment.”
The authors report survey results showing that physicians appear to give more deference to requests that are linked in a clear way to religious commitments.
In contrast, physicians give less deference to expectations for a miracle. While religious claims fall outside physician expertise, hope for miracles seem more arbitrary and idiosyncratic and counterclaim physician medical authority.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.