Volume 13, Issue 3, Autumn 2013
Matthew Heffron
Pages 483-498
Providing Health Care to Patients against Their Will
Obtaining a patient’s informed consent to treatment is an ethical, legal, and professional requirement based on the defense of human dignity. In some cases, however, a government may mandate treatment for patients without their consent if their failure to obtain treatment could endanger the common good. Such a need may arise, for example, in public emergencies, with cases of tuberculosis, and with patients who have mental health issues. May a Catholic health care professional or institution ethically provide treatment to patients who resist or refuse it? The author replies with a qualified yes. Legally mandated treatment may be given without a patient’s consent so long as the treatment is necessary to protect the lives of others, it is limited strictly to what is necessary to protect others, and the principle of subsidiarity applies. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.3 (Autumn 2013): 483–498.