Category: Law
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
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]
Religious Liberty and Conscience Protection Act
Michigan House Bill 136 (2013)
A bill to protect religious liberty and rights of conscience in the areas of health care and medical and scientific research as it pertains to employment, education and training, and participating in health care services and to the purchasing of or providing for the
purchase of health insurance; to provide immunity from liability; and to prescribe penalties and provide remedies. Text of Bill
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]
Pakistan passes Reproductive Healthcare and Rights Act
The National Assembly of Pakistan has unanimously passed a private member bill sponsored by Dr. Attiya Inayatullah the Reproductive Health care and Rights Bill, 2013. One of the concerns underlying passage of the bill was the high rate of mortality associated with childbirth. [Daily Mail]