- Michael Sean Winters* | . . . We are called to conform ourselves to the moral law and so form our consciences that this conformity is understood, properly, as a genuine liberation, a freeing of one’s capacity to choose so that we choose the good. In short, our exercise of conscience is not just a legal claim of immunity. . .
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Category: Procedures & Services
New Zealand abortion activists complain about physician freedom of conscience
Dr. Joseph Lee, a physician in Blenheim, New Zealand, has been criticized by abortion activists because he refused to prescribe contraceptives for a 23 year old patient. Dr. Lee practises at the Wairau Community Clinic. A pamphlet in the reception area advises patients that some of the clinic’s physicians will not prescribe contraceptives, and staff attempt to direct patients accordingly. The clinic leader may consider installing a sign to minimize further conflicts.
Dr. Lee identifies himself as a Catholic, but is reported to have said that he would be willing to prescribe the birth control pill to a woman who was spacing children or had had at least four children. That is not consistent with the teaching of the Catholic Church on the subject, and it is an unusual position among health care workers who object to providing contraception.
The Abortion Law Reform Association NZ (ALRANZ) wants the General Medical Council to force objecting physicians to refer patients or otherwise assist them to obtain morally contested services. The president of ALRANZ, Dr. Morgan Healey, claims that a High Court decision in 2010 has made the question of referral legally ambiguous. [New Zealand Herald]
However, Justice Alan MacKenzie of the High Court in Wellington, New Zealand,unambiguously ruled that New Zealand’s Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act protected objecting physicians, and that the General Medical Council could not force them to refer abortion. All that is required of a physician who objects to abortion is to decline to begin the process and inform his patient that she may obtain the procedure from another practitioner. The protection of conscience provision states that objecting health care workers are not obliged “To fit or assist in the fitting, or supply or administer or assist in the supply or administering, of any contraceptive, or to offer or give any advice relating to contraception.” The ruling was the result of litigation by the New Zealand Health Professionals Alliance, which, earlier this year established a website to support freedom of conscience for health care workers.
Irish Bishops’ briefing note on the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013
The Catholic bishops of Ireland have sent a briefing note to the Oireachtas (Irish parliament) concerning the controversial Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013. Among the criticisms of the bill was the following reference to the bill’s protection of conscience provision:
3. The Bill also creates a number of serious moral, legal and Constitutional conflicts in the area of freedom of conscience and religious belief, notably:
A. The Bill provides for conscientious objection by ‘any medical practitioner, nurse or midwife’ only. It excludes others who may be obliged to co-operate in providing abortion services against their conscience or religious belief. This is in contrast to the wording of the proposed Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Bill 2001, which provided for conscientious objection by ‘any person’ carrying out or assisting in an abortion. The operation of this clause is also unacceptable because it involves a form of co-operation in evil by obliging those who conscientiously object to knowingly put the patient in to the care of medical personnel who will carry out an abortion. In effect, therefore, medical personnel are being given no choice but to cooperate in an abortion. This is in contrast to the practice in many other countries which ask only that the patient be handed over to the care of other medical personnel. Limiting the scope of conscientious objection in this way is potentially in conflict with Article 44.2.3 of the Constitution, which states that: “The State shall not impose any disabilities or make any discrimination on the ground of religious profession, belief or status”, with the general direction of legal interpretation of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights and with recent UK based cases such as Doogan & Anor v NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde Health Board [2013] ScotCS CSIH 36.
B. Article 44.2.3 also raises important questions of principle about the application of the Party Whip system to oblige members of the Oireachtas to vote in favour of this legislation, against their religious conscience. It may even open the possibility of a Constitutional challenge to the legislation itself on the basis of an un-constitutional legislative process.
C. The obligation on ‘appropriate institutions’ identified by the Minister to provide abortion services may be in conflict with existing legal arrangements and, in some cases with Article 44.2.5 of the Constitution, which states that: “Every religious denomination shall have the right to manage its own affairs, own, acquire and administer property, movable and immovable, and maintain institutions for religious or charitable purposes”.
People need to be free to act on their conscience
CONSCIENTIOUS objection is a hugely important concept. On fundamental ethical issues, like life and death, people should have the freedom to act on their conscience.
This applies to those legislating on abortion and providing access to abortion. The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013 allows conscientious objection, but in the most limited way. Its provisions are more restrictive than in many other jurisdictions, which carries a chilling message. . .
. . . Forcing people to violate their conscience risks bending or breaking the moral compass that guides them. Therefore, legislators should be free to vote on this legislation according to their conscience. And anyone working in hospitals providing abortions should be able to consciously object to being involved. [Full text]
Personal Opinions and Ideology, Not “Science”
From Conscience and its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism
On September 11, 2008, the President’s Council on Bioethics heard testimony by Anne Lyerly, MD, chair of ACOG ‘s Committee on Ethics. Dr. Lyerly appeared in connection with the council’s review of her committee ‘s opinion (No. 385) entitled “Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine.” That opinion proposes that physicians in the field of women’s health be required as a matter of ethical duty to refer patients for abortions and sometimes even to perform abortions themselves .
I found the ACOG Ethics Committee ‘s opinion shocking and, indeed, frightening. One problem was its lack of regard – bordering on contempt , really – for the sincere claims of conscience of Catholic, Evangelical Protestant , Orthodox Jewish , and other pro-life physicians and health-care workers. . .[Full text]