Protection of Conscience Project News
Service, not Servitude
In the fall of 2012 the Uruguayan legislature passed the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy Act, which legalized abortion in the country under certain circumstances. By January, 2013, Reuters was reporting that the law was meeting “fierce opposition” among Uruguayan gynaecologists, with up to a third of them refusing to provide the procedure for reasons of conscience;1 in some locations, almost none will do so. . . Full Text
The Act legalizing abortion in Uruguay, passed in the fall of 2012, includes two protection of conscience provisions.
Section 10 provides protection for existing health care institutions that are part of the National Integrated Health System if they had ideological objections to abortion at the time the law was enacted. They are not required to provide abortion, but “may” reach an agreement with the Ministry of Public Health to arrange for their patients to have abortions elsewhere. If “may” is understood to mean that such arrangements are optional, institutional freedom of conscience will not be compromised. However, it appears that all hospitals that are part of the National Integrated Health System that are opened from this point on will be required to provide abortions.
Section 11 allows conscientious objection by health care workers, but this is limited by the meaning given to “health” in Section 6A.
[Protection of concience provisions: Spanish/English]
A panel of three judges in Edinburgh is hearing arguments in an appeal by two midwives who were ordered to supervise provision of abortion in the National Health Service Greater Glasgow and Clyde region. A lower court ruled that the protection of conscience provision in the 1967 Abortion Act did not apply to them. [BBC] The case turns upon the definition of “participation,” which is not set out in the Act.
The Life Issues Institute reports that ads are being run on Facebook in the United Kingdom that offer women assistance in finding nearby abortion facilities, including late-term abortion specialists. The ads demonstrate that there is no need to force objecting health care workers to facilitate abortion by referral or by providing abortionist contact information, as access to abortion can be easily facilitated by popular social media and websites.