Contemporary bioethics generally stipulates that public moral deliberation must avoid allowing religious beliefs to influence or justify health policy and law. Secular premises and arguments are assumed to maintain the neutral, common ground required for moral deliberation in the public square of a pluralistic society. However, a careful examination of non-theistic arguments used to justify euthanasia (regarding contested notions of human dignity, individual autonomy, and death as annihilation) reveals a dependence on metaethical and metaphysical beliefs that are not universally accepted in a pluralistic society. Such beliefs function in non-theistic arguments in the same way that foundational beliefs justify moral convictions in religious frameworks of belief. This parallel is apparent when religious belief is defined broadly (a la John Reeder) as ‘the search for the good in light of the limits and possibilities of the real.’ Seen through this interpretive lens, frameworks comprising Secular foundational commitments function, in ethically relevant respects, like the guiding beliefs found in the comprehensive frameworks of traditional religions. When conscientious practice in healthcare is reconsidered in light of this foundational similarity between the religious and the secular, it is clear that those who object to the foundational beliefs underpinning Secular arguments for euthanasia should not be required to provide, participate in, or refer patients for euthanasia (or other ethically controversial practices similarly dependent on contested frameworks of belief) in pluralistic societies that prize moral freedom as a primary human good.

当代生命伦理学普遍规定，公共道德审议必须避免让宗教信仰影响或证明卫生政策和法律的合理性。世俗的前提和论点被假定为在多元化社会的公共广场上维持道德审议所需的中立、共同基础。然而，仔细检查用来为安乐死辩护的非有神论论据（关于人的尊严、个人自主权和死亡作为毁灭的有争议的概念）揭示了对多元社会中未被普遍接受的元伦理学和形而上学信仰的依赖。这种信仰在非神论论证中的作用与基本信仰在宗教信仰框架中证明道德信念的方式相同。当宗教信仰被广泛定义时，这种相似性很明显（a la John Reeder) 作为“根据真实的限制和可能性寻找善”。从这个解释的角度来看，包括世俗基础承诺在内的框架在伦理相关方面发挥作用，就像在传统宗教的综合框架中发现的指导信仰一样。当根据宗教和世俗之间的这种基本相似性重新考虑医疗保健中的尽责实践时，很明显，那些反对支撑世俗安乐死论点的基本信仰的人不应被要求提供、参与或转介患者接受安乐死。在将道德自由视为人类基本利益的多元社会中的安乐死（或其他类似的基于有争议的信仰框架的道德争议实践）。