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In her closing remarks to the jury, Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen) eloquently conveys the professional obligation physicians have to their patients--an obligation that trumps their personal beliefs and requires that they act in accordance with the beliefs of their patients. Shirley, we couldn't have said it better!
"One of our many rights in this country is what is called informed consent. Every patient has the right to decide what happens to his or her body. And to make that decision, a patient needs to rely on her doctor to disclose all available options. Do you want chemotherapy or surgery for a brain tumor? Do you want to amputate below the knee or hope for the best and risk death from gangrene? Do you want to prevent pregnancy or have your rapist’s baby?
 Amelia Warner didn’t get to choose. She was deprived of a crucial, medically relevant option because her doctor did not approve of it. She didn’t choose to receive healthcare restricted by religious doctrine. She was taken to the ER unconscious. She relied on her doctor at St. Mary’s to provide her with proper care or refer her elsewhere. And, he failed her.
Twenty-five thousand women will become pregnant from rape this year. If all of those women took this emergency contraception, 22,000 of those pregnancies could be avoided.
Doctors provide a crucial public benefit to a diverse society and we cannot condone it when they impose their own religion on patients whom they are professionally obligated to serve--especially patients in their most vulnerable states. A teenager, for example, brought into an emergency room after a brutal rape. A teenager, who is now left to choose between violating her own moral principles and terminating the pregnancy or postponing college to deliver this child. A child conceived against her will, a direct result of the most traumatic ordeal she has ever endured."
-closing statement of Shirley Schmit, EC in the ER court case, ABC's Boston Legal "Smile Episode", aired February 14, 2006.
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