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]

British pharmacy regulator plans to revisit freedom of conscience for pharmacists

The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), the state regulator of the profession of pharmacy in the United Kingdom, will be reviewing its standards of conduct, ethics and performance, “including Standard 3.4 which sets out what pharmacy professionals must do if their religious or moral beliefs prevent them from providing a service.”

Preliminary work is to be done in 2013, and there will be public consultation and engagement in 2014/2015.  Those concerned about freedom of conscience among pharmacists in the United Kingdom should follow and participate in the review.

For further information:

Can Atheists and Muslims Support Freedom of Conscience Together?

 Religion and Politics

Qasim Rashid and Chris Stedman

Thomas Jefferson once wrote: “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

For many of us, it’s easy to appreciate Jefferson’s eloquently stated advocacy of religious freedom of conscience, as well as the idea that all individuals should be able to express religious or nonreligious positions independent of others’ beliefs. Likewise, at the United Nations, both the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the binding International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantee “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” to all individuals. But, in spite of international agreements and Jefferson’s beautiful words, the reality is that these tenets are often forgotten. . . . Read more

 

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]