AN AWKWARD MATTER OF CONSCIENCE

Several weeks ago I wrote about Dr. Mary Hanna, who had received $184,000 toward her medical education from the U.S. Army in exchange for committing herself to four years of active duty and four years of reserve duty once she had become a doctor. In December 2005, however, as she was completing her medical residency, Hanna notified the Army that she wanted reclassification as a conscientious objector, based on religious beliefs that she recently had embraced.

As reported in The Boston Globe, Hanna wrote in her application for conscientious-objector status that she felt that she would betray "moral and religious principles by participating in war in any way." The Army denied her initial request, but she appealed.

I asked my readers if they thought that Hanna was morally bound to carry out the commitment she had made to the Army, even if she repays the money with interest, as her lawyer says she is willing to do? Or did her new religious obligation trump her previous contractual agreement?

Not surprisingly, I received a tremendous amount of reader response.

"A contract is a contract," writes Red Wolfe of Melbourne, Fla., speaking for many of my readers. "Buying out is not, nor should it be, an option. So suck it up and do the honorable thing and do your duty as per your contract, regardless of second thoughts."

Jean Crawford, a former Army nurse who now lives in Charlotte, N.C., served three years of active duty in exchange for receiving a salary from the Army while completing her nursing degree. Hanna's offer to repay the debt doesn't resolve anything, she writes, because the Army could have used that money to help someone else through medical school "who would have served without whining."

Crawford believes that being a conscientious objector is perfectly consistent with being an Army doctor.

"She would have the opportunity to treat not only her fellow soldiers, but also the wounded enemy and wounded civilians -- a very, very conscientious thing to do," she says.

Many readers point out that physicians are noncombatants who do not carry guns.

"They are not expected to fight," writes Gwen Wooldridge of Huntington Beach, Calif., "just cure."

A number of readers expressed suspicion of Hanna's recent, "convenient" conversion into a conscientious objector.

Even some of those who are willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, however, believe that it should be the Army's decision, not hers, as to whether Hanna should serve her terms of active and reserve duty. If the Army needs medical staff, writes Dave Marohl of Sun Prairie, Wis., it would be wrong to let her off the hook.

"The choice should be their option," he writes, "rather than given to the person who has chosen to duck her responsibilities."

Readers such as Phil Clutts of Harrisburg, N.C., believe that the Army should accept Hanna's offer to repay the money and relieve her of her obligation.

Requiring her "to meet her contractual -- and moral -- obligation to the Army could backfire," writes Clutts, who is concerned that she might be so distressed by her internal conflicts as to be unable to function effectively. "Why take the chance, if the government can get its money back?"

Since I posed my question to readers, the case has gone to trial and a federal judge has reversed the Army's decision, ruling that Hanna must be discharged from the Army as a conscientious objector.

That was the legal verdict, but was it, independent of the niceties of the law, the right thing to do? I don't believe so.

Hanna would have been wise to raise her concerns well before the precise moment that her call to duty was coming due. But faith doesn't work on a timetable, and I don't question her claim that this is a matter of faith.

What troubles me, rather, is her conclusion that she cannot conscientiously be involved with the military in any way.

As several of my readers point out, her role as a physician would make her a noncombatant. If she feels that, even so, she cannot treat soldiers or civilians who are injured during war because she disapproves of war, how does that translate into nonmilitary contexts? I agree with Mary Burson, a reader from Laguna Niguel, Calif., who finds Hanna's objections too simplistic.

"As a civilian physician," Burson writes, "she would conscientiously object to smoking, drug addiction, overeating and gang activity, but she would not refuse to treat patients whose ailments or injuries resulted from these causes. It would be morally wrong."

Hanna made a commitment, and that commitment does not vanish because she now sees it in a different light. She is obligated to avoid viewing the situation in black-and-white and instead to make more of an effort to find a way in which her newfound religious sensibilities and her earlier contractual obligation can be rationalized.

Her faith may, for example, prohibit her from doing anything that would enable a wounded soldier to return to the battleground and prolong the war. But that prohibition would probably not extend to barring her from using her skills stateside, at a veteran's hospital, treating wounded soldiers who will never see battle again. Perhaps this sort of compromise would satisfy the Army, perhaps not -- but it is Hanna's responsibility to explore every alternative, rather than simply folding up her cards and going home.

As for the Army's responsibilities in the case, Hanna has the same right to apply for conscientious-objector status that anyone else has, and the Army has the moral obligation to take her application seriously. It would be wrong for reviewers to approach her application prejudiced by the suspicion that her religious conversion is the result of cowardice or the desire to earn more money in civilian practice.

It is obligated to consider her application carefully and without prejudice, in short, but it is not obligated to grant her conscientious-objector status if, in the Army's opinion, she does not qualify for it. And, like Hanna herself, the Army leadership should avoid either/or scenarios and try to find a way for her to serve out her obligation without dismissing out of hand her religious objections.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business" (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of http://www.jeffreyseglin.com, a Web log focused on ethical issues.

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