A young woman needs an abortion, and the reasons, while urgent, are not medical. A United States Navy nurse at Guantánamo Bay is ordered to force-feed a defiant detainee on a hunger strike.

These very different real-life cases have one connecting thread: the question of whether a health professional can conscientiously object to carrying out a patient’s request.

Freedom of conscience is often held up as a purely noble principle. But when it’s used to deny healthcare, it means a single person’s beliefs are dictating what is best for another person’s physical and mental health — which can have devastating, even fatal, results.

In our recent book, Rethinking Conscientious Objection in Health Care, my colleagues and I conclude that doctors should not be free to make medical decisions based on their personal beliefs.