The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act affirms that we have a fundamental right to freedom of conscience. The concept crops up in other legislation too, like the provisions that allow for conscientious objection to participation in euthanasia and abortion, and you can find it referenced in guidelines from bodies like the Medical Council and the Nursing Council.

All of this begs an important question: what, exactly, is conscience? Even more importantly, why does it matter? If lawyers are to understand the law, and health professionals are to understand their ethical obligations, we need answers to these questions.  

In this webinar you’ll learn from Dr Xavier Symons, author of Why Conscience Matters: A defence of conscientious objection in healthcare (Routledge, 2022). Dr Symons discusses the meaning of conscience, the phenomenon of moral injury when conscience is violated, and why freedom of conscience is a foundation for medical and other professional practice.

Details

• Cost: $85 including GST
• 1 hour (1 CPD point)
• Obtain access to this webinar by emailing contact@ethosalliance.nz

Learning objectives

By watching this webinar, you will:

• Learn what conscience is and when conscience issues arise;
• Understand how freedom of conscience is important not merely in those narrow areas where it has legal protection but because it provides a foundation for professional practice as a whole;
• Learn about the phenomenon of moral distress and injury caused by having to violate conscience, and the implications for legislators and policy-makers;
• Consider when the right to freedom of conscience might be limited, and what is at stake when it is.

About the presenter

Dr Xavier Symons is the Director of the Plunkett Centre for Ethics at Australian Catholic University. Xavier previously worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Human Flourishing Program in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University and prior to this was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Plunkett Centre and a Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics and Society at the University of Notre Dame Australia.

Xavier's research interests span a broad range of themes in bioethics. He wrote a doctoral thesis on contemporary theories of distributive justice and the ethics of healthcare resource allocation, and has written extensively about the ethics of end of life care and voluntary assisted dying. Xavier has contributed extensively to both Australian and international media outlets and his work has been featured in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review, ABC Religion and Ethics, The Guardian, and Public Discourse.

He holds degrees from the University of Sydney, the University of Oxford, and the Australian Catholic University.

‍