Protection of Conscience Project News
Service, not Servitude
International Law Office
The Supreme Court recently deemed that a municipality’s termination of its agreement with a general practitioner (GP) after she refused to insert an intrauterine device (IUD) for a patient for reasons of conscience relating to her religion was invalid.
Legal background
The criterion for terminating an agreement with a GP is the same as that for terminating an employment agreement under Norwegian law (ie, it must be objectively justified). . . [Full text]
Public Radio International
Italy legalized abortion 40 years ago. But according to a group of Italian gynecologists, access to the procedure has been declining for years now.
The main reason is that fewer doctors who work in Italy’s public health facilities are willing to perform abortions. Italy’s abortion law requires all hospitals to provide access to the procedure. But the law also gives gynecologists the option to declare themselves “conscientious objectors.”
“For example, in the public University of Rome, we have more than 60 doctors but only two provide abortion, only two,” said Silvana Agatone, a gynecologist in Rome. . . [Full text]
Crux
SANTIAGO, Chile – A Chilean court has ruled that private healthcare facilities may conscientiously object to abortions, declaring unconstitutional a law that had gone into effect in October.
By a vote of 8-2, the nation’s Constitutional Court struck down a portion of the Regulation on Conscientious Objection of the Law on Abortion. The court accepted a Dec. 6 appeal filed by senators of the Chile Vamos coalition which sought to annul part of the Department of Health regulation. . .[Full text]
The Chronicle Herald
Today (Dec. 17) marks two and a half years since the coming into force of Canada’s federal legislation on medical assistance in dying (MAiD).
In Nova Scotia, MAiD has now been requested in about 400 cases and provided in about 200. Unfortunately, there is one particularly notable gap in access to MAiD: St. Martha’s Regional Hospital, a publicly funded faith-based institution in Antigonish, refuses to allow MAiD within its walls. . . [Full text]
The Province
. . . an individual who is suffering intolerably and whose death is reasonably foreseeable has a constitutional right to medical assistance in dying (MAiD) if certain other criteria are met. . .
. . . most people in Vancouver’s West End will end up at St. Paul’s, a hospital run by Catholic-based Providence Health, which doesn’t allow MAiD to be performed in any of its facilities. Anyone wanting to access MAiD once at St. Paul’s must be transferred to Vancouver General Hospital or another willing facility. . .
. . . end the practice of forced transfers by insisting that all taxpayer-funded facilities, including Providence facilities, provide MAiD on site. . .[Full text]