UN Human Rights Council equates lack of access to abortion with torture

Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

Juan E. Méndez

The present report focuses on certain forms of abuses in health-care settings that
may cross a threshold of mistreatment that is tantamount to torture or cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment. It identifies the policies that promote these practices  and existing protection gaps.

By illustrating some of these abusive practices in health-care settings, the report sheds light on often undetected forms of abusive practices that occur under the auspices of health-care policies, and emphasizes how certain treatments run afoul of the prohibition on torture and ill-treatment. It identifies the scope of State‟s obligations to regulate, control and supervise health-care practices with a view to preventing mistreatment under any pretext.

The Special Rapporteur examines a number of the abusive practices commonly reported in health-care settings and describes how the torture and ill-treatment framework applies in this context. [Report]

Freedom of conscience in Philippines impacted by Reproductive Health Act

The Philippines Department of Health has signed the  Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of Republic Act 10354, otherwise known as the “Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law of 2012” (RPRH Act of 2012).   The regulations have not yet been posted on the Department’s website. [DOH News Release]

The regulations will have an immediate impact on the exercise of freedom of conscience by health care workers.  According to news reports, those who are privately employed must complete an affidavit setting out what they object to and why, and must post a prominent notice of what “reproductive health services” they will not provide.  Government health care workers will apparently be forced to use some kind of civil service process to obtain approval for the exercise of freedom of conscience.

DOH Assistant Secretary Dr. Madeleine Valera stated that the law would be applied “liberally,” by which she appears to have meant that freedom of conscience will be restricted as much as possible so that purported “human rights” would be protected. [Sun Star]

Freedom of conscience among Italian Obstetrician-gynaecologists seen as “problem”

An Italian group called Gynecologists for the Application of Law 194/78 (LAIGA) has reported that conscientious objection to abortion among Italian obstetrician-gynaecologists is the majority position, reaching 80 or 90 percent in some parts of the country.  Most of the objectors are younger practitioners, so it would seem that the situation is unlikely to change.  LAIGA demands “regulation” of conscientious objection in response, by which it obviously means the suppression of freedom of conscience by some regulatory mechanism. [LifeSite News]

New York Hospital Agrees to Respect Rights of Pro-Life Nurses

The Foundry

Thomas Messner

Mount Sinai Hospital in New York has agreed to additional policy and procedure changes to protect the conscience rights of pro-life nurses and other employees as a result of a federal investigation.

In 2009, the hospital allegedly forced a Catholic pro-life nurse to assist in an abortion in violation of the nurse’s religious beliefs. Read more . . .