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For those of us who are non-orthodox, and who believe that the Torah is
not utterly immutably divine, but a work written by human beings, divinely
inspired though they may have been at least some of the time, this is not
such a hard question.
In Jewish teaching, before the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), in the
ten days of penitence running up to it from Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah),
Jews are expected to make their peace with/apologize to/put things right
with those people to whom they have done wrong over the past year.
Physicians' primary obligations are to their patients, without a doubt.
They have other obligations, of course, including to wider society, to
their professional colleagues, both physicians and other health care
professionals, to their employing institutions, and to their own ethical
codes (which may or may not accord completely with their personal
religious convictions.) We know that many physicians have strong moral
objections to carrying out certain procedures for religious reasons- e.g.
Catholics and abortion. But they must tell their patients that that is
the case, and be honest with them. And they must advise them to go elsewhere
if the patients hold other and differing religious views. To pretend
that physicians' own religious views trump those of their patients or wider
society is both arrogant and wrong-headed.
It's not only in America. We get our sex scandals in the UK, from Mark Oaten as Liberal Democrat leader hopeful who came out as having had a relationship with a rent boy to Simon Hughes, the party president, who had to come out as gay; from Conservative minister David Mellor who apparently wore his football strip when having an affair with a young actress to former prime minister John Major whose affair with Edwina Currie, a minister in his administration, was revealed in her autobiography, to John Profumo, all those years ago, who had a relationship with Christine Keeler, a prostitute..... sexual matters have always been meat and drink to political gossip. Does it matter?
What Islam Really Says About Violence, Rights and Other Religions
Gomaa, Fadlallah, Mubarak, Khan, Siddiqi, Ellison, others | On Faith
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