Category: International

World Medical Association and unethical “participation”

Those who, for reasons of conscience, refuse to facilitate morally contested procedures by referral or other indirect means should take note of the World Medical Association’s reaffirmation of its position against physician “participation” in executions, which now includes a statement that physicians must not facilitate executions by importing drugs for executions.  Similarly, the British group, Reprieve, has embarked upon a campaign to have drug companies sign a Pharmaceutical Hippocratic Oath against the use of their products in executions.  [Bioedge]

 

World Health Organization demands referral for abortion

Safe Abortion: Technical and Policy Guidance for Health Systems, a newly revised publication of the World Health Organization, claims that objecting health care workers have an ethical responsibility to refer patients for abortion, or to provide abortions if referral is not possible.  (Sec. 3.3.6, p. 69, Box 3.2,p. 73).  It also claims that conscientious objection without referral is a barrier to health care and that referral is a legal obligation under human rights law.  Chapter 4 of the text, which is the basis for these demands, was revised under the guidance of the Programme on International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada (p. 11).  Two professors from this faculty, Rebecca Cook and Bernard Dickens, have been making such claims for years.  They have, in the past, seriously misrepresented the law on this point in an effort to make referral for abortion mandatory.  (See Postscript for the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada: Morgentaler vs. Professors Cook and Dickens, and Conscientious Objection as a Crime Against Humanity.)   The WHO document has been reviewed and criticized by Susan Yoshihara of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, but awaits a critique by medical and legal professionals.

UN Population Fund makes rights claims

The U.N. Population Fund’s annual report claims that access to birth control is a human right.  The report has no legal significance, but activists like the American based Center for Reproductive Rights have pursued a strategy of seeking such declarations, or “soft norms,” in the hope that they will eventually lead to binding “harde norms” that can be enforced against governments and objecting health care workers. (See Secret Memos Reveal Worldwide Pro-Abortion Legal Strategy)

 

UN Human Rights Commission demands suppression of freedom of conscience

The UN Human Rights Commison has issued a document that purports to base the restriction or suppression of freedom of conscience among health care workers on human rights claims.  Technical guidance on the application of a human rights based approach to the implementation of policies and programmes to reduce preventable maternal morbidity and mortality.  Section 30 of the document calls for changing laws and policies that allow conscientious objection “to hinder women’s access to a full range of services.”  Section 61 states that laws, polices and regulations that allow “unregulated conscientious objection” should be changed, and “newly established obligations of providers and rights of individual users should be disseminated.” The resolution was endorsed by New Zealand, Burkina Faso, and Colombia and enumerates access to abortion among “sexual and reproductive health rights.” 20 of the 47 council members opposed the text.  The UN General Assembly will consider adopting it later in October. [CFAM]

Global Charter of Conscience published

A Global Charter of Conscience has been drafted and published, introduced by the following explanation:

Freedom of conscience underpins many of the other human rights that we all enjoy. This is why the right to express your belief is enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, this freedom is being marginalised.

The Global Charter of Conscience will bring religious tolerance back to the centre of public debate, and it will help future generations engage freely in the public life of their nation.

The Charter has been drafted by people of many faiths and none, politicians of many persuasions, academics and NGOs, all committed to a partnership on behalf of “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” for people of all faiths and none.