Can Proposals for Social Inclusion Promote Practices of Moral Exclusion? An Example of Moral Disagreement from the Physical Therapy Profession

Various standards and guidelines have been recently proposed within one of the professional organizations of physical therapy. Many of these proposals include calls to embrace specific ideological understandings of health in relation to identity, sexuality, and the body. These proposals draw on beliefs and convictions that are outside the primary domains that constitute physical therapy practice. Thus, if these proposals are implemented by the profession, conflicts of conscience inevitably arise when they suggest a particular way of navigating patient encounters that conflict with traditional Christian convictions regarding sexuality and the human body. In what follows, one example of such a proposed guideline is analyzed to demonstrate the concerning features of this trend and to propose an alternative path forward.