O Canada! > Canadian > Canadian Chat > GTA is Full of Them - Another "My Rights Are More Important

This lady is no Rosa Parks, lmao.

So what about a Muslim Dr., isn't he obligated to touch a woman in need of immediate medical attention?

It is highly unlikely a very observant Muslim would be a doctor, unless he specialized in an area of men's health.

A recent article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics grappled with that question in the context of male Muslim medical students refusing to learn how to examine females because they believe it is wrong to touch women to whom they are not married or related. The article argues—persuasively in my view—that medical conscience should not extend this far because it would result in future physicians lacking an “essential competency”:

By refusing to perform examinations on members of the opposite sex, such students are failing to engage the question of what constitutes a touch that is professional and non-sexual—one that exemplifies a ‘cool intimacy’ that is still compatible with closeness to a patient. The matter here is not mechanics of touch; it is instead an emotional and psychological investigation whereby one learns how to cognitively distinguish clinical touching from touch that might otherwise signify erotic or romantic affection. This reasoning suggests that an inherent part of learning how to perform physical examinations involves a deep core competency . . . [and thus] gaining knowledge necessarily involves participation in the objected-to activity.

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That seems indisputable to me. One simply can’t receive a thorough medical education by learning to practice exclusively on one’s own sex.