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 United Nations Human Rights Committee has been accused of elevating individual freedom above moral considerations after recently including abortion and assisted suicide among the ‘human rights’ that should be protected by states.
The committee’s ‘General Comment’ on the right to life, issued at the end of October, argued for the decriminalisation of abortion and the removal of restrictions that could subject women or girls to ‘physical or mental pain’ if they are unable to terminate their pregnancy. . .
‘States parties should not introduce new barriers and should remove existing barriers that deny effective access by women and girls to safe and legal abortion, including barriers caused as a result of the exercise of conscientious objection by individual medical providers,’ it said. . .
On assisted suicide, the committee stated that where this was legal, ‘robust’ legal safeguards should be in place to protect patients from abuse. . . [Full text]
Irish Independent
MORE than 2,500 women may seek a medical abortion from a GP or maternity hospital next year.
The figure is based on the number of early terminations recorded by UK clinics last year among women who travelled from the Republic of Ireland. . . [Full text]