Defending freedom of conscience on emergency contraception

CMF Blogs
Reproduced with permission

Philippa Taylor*

The UK’s biggest abortion provider, British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), has attacked pharmacists who do not sell the ‘morning-after pill’ for conscience reasons. 

After one incident when a pharmacist would not dispense emergency contraception to a woman for ‘personal’ reasons, BPAS condemned both the pharmacist and the conscience protections provided to pharmacists. A petition was set up to prevent pharmacists from claiming freedom of conscience rights. 

Under the current law, covered by guidance from the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), pharmacists with a genuine conscientious objection to selling the pill may refer the customer to another pharmacist.

However, BPAS complained that it is ‘impossible to overstate the significance of even one pharmacist conscientiously objecting to selling the morning-after pill’. 

Fortunately, the General Pharmaceutical Council, in this case, upheld its guidelines and the consequent media coverage has now died down, temporarily at least.

This may seem like a one-off minor incident, but it is an illustration of increasing pressures on freedom of conscience protections. It is often assumed that the role of the conscience in medicine is relevant only to a few specialised and limited areas such as contraception or abortion, but in fact, the concept of the conscience goes right to the heart of what it means to act in a moral way, to act with integrity.

If we do not stand by those who are under pressure, the problems will only get worse and will spread. A well-known quote, often attibuted to Burke though it may have come originally from J S Mill, warns: ‘He should not be lulled to repose by the delusion that he does no harm who takes no part in public affairs. He should know that bad men need no better opportunity than when good men look on and do nothing.’

The Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) has therefore written to the General Pharmaceutical Council to ensure they are aware of our concerns and to thank them for holding to their guidance. The text of our letter is as follows, with their response after it:

‘I am writing to you following the recent news coverage of a Lloyds pharmacy worker who, according to news reports, conscientiously objected to selling the morning-after pill and directed a customer to another pharmacy instead. I note that a petition has since been set up to prevent pharmacists from claiming conscientious objection rights.

‘The Christian Medical Fellowship is the UK’s largest faith-based group of health professionals and we contributed with both written and oral evidence to your review of your Guidance on Religion, Personal Values and Beliefs. We publicly welcomed the new Guidance and the statement accompanying it, in which the Chief Executive of the General Pharmaceutical Council highlighted the positive contribution that pharmacists’ faith can make in their provision of care. We also welcomed the clear statement that: “Pharmacy professionals have the right to practise in line with their religion, personal values or beliefs”.

‘We all aspire to person-centred care. In any care scenario, there are (at least) two parties – the carer and the one receiving care – each of whom has rights. The General Pharmaceutical Council guidance helpfully achieves a balance between the patient’s right to service access and the pharmacist’s right to freedom of conscience.

Respect for the sincerely held religious and moral beliefs of employees is essential and we are concerned that some of the demands being made, based on this one recent case, would marginalise the beliefs, values and religion of pharmacists disproportionately and unnecessarily, and trivialise their right to freedom of conscience under the law. Despite widespread coverage of this case, we have yet to see evidence of recurring complaints under the present provisions.

‘While we strongly support the right to freedom of conscience for pharmacists, we do also emphasise the importance of openness and sensitive communication with colleagues and employers; any refusal to supply should be made courteously and sensitively.

‘On behalf of CMF, I want to thank the Council for protecting the right of pharmacists to refuse to engage in certain procedures that violate their most profound moral convictions.

‘I also encourage the Council to continue to make it clear, publicly, that all pharmacy professionals have the right to practise in line with their religion, personal values or beliefs.

Yours faithfully

Dr Mark Pickering
Chief Executive, CMF

The General Pharmaceutical Council replied with the following two sentences:

‘Our existing guidance In practice: Guidance on religion, personal values and beliefs (to which you refer) remains in place. We have no current plans to review it. As you are aware, the guidance sits under our standards for pharmacy professionals and relates to standard 1, Pharmacy professionals must provide person-centred care.’

The point here is simple but vital: if we care about liberty and personal integrity, we must make a reasoned defence of it in the public square, from the smallest incident to the biggest.

WA’s take on assisted dying has many similarities with the Victorian law – and some important differences

The  Conversation

Ben White, Katrine  Del Villar, Lindy  Wilmott, Rebecca Meehan

Western Australia may soon become the second Australian state to permit voluntary assisted dying, with the release on Tuesday of its Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2019.

As in Victoria, whose law is now just under two months old, the bill was the product of reviews by a parliamentary committee and ministerial expert panel. It’s expected to be debated in the Western Australian parliament in three weeks.

So how does what’s being proposed compare to the law in Victoria? . . . [Full text]

Bill to decriminalise abortion passes NSW Lower House

ABC News

Jonathon Hair

A historic bill to decriminalise abortion in New South Wales has passed the State Parliament’s Lower House, following two weeks of impassioned debate.

Members of Parliament were granted a conscience vote on the bill, which aims to remove abortion from the Crimes Act and define it as a medical procedure in its own legislation. . . [Full text]

Euthanasia bill falls short on freedom of conscience

Objecting students unprotected, refusal may incur civil, criminal liability

Sean Murphy*

Western Australia’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2019 includes provisions intended to protect all registered health practitioners who refuse to participate for reasons of conscience. By virtue of the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (Western Australia) this includes nurses, midwives, pharmacists, radiologists, psychologists and other professions.

However, the bill explicitly excludes students, probably to ensure that only non-student practitioners are permitted to accept and process requests, assess patients and provide euthanasia or assisted suicide (EAS).  Unfortunately, the effect of this exclusion is that nothing in the bill prevents students from being required to participate in all aspects of EAS delivery under the direction of a fully qualified registered health practitioner, or making such practical training a requirement for professional qualification.  This would be inconsistent with one of the guiding principles in the bill (Section 4(1)j), so it may be an oversight that will be corrected during the legislative process.

Fully qualified registered health practitioners may refuse to participate in the request and assessment process, prescription, supply or administration of lethal drugs, and to be present when the drugs are administered (Section 9(1)).  The bill further states that, by identifying these actions, it does not intend “to limit the circumstances in which a registered health practitioner may refuse” to do them (Section 9(2)).  This would seem to extend protection to include refusal to do do things not specified in the section, but obviously related to providing euthanasia or assisted suicide, like setting an intravenous line for administration of lethal drugs.  That interpretation is consistent with the definition of voluntary assisted dying, whichincludes “steps reasonably related to such administration.”  Clearly, this would include any of the actions explicitly required by the law, such as assessments, notifications, acting as a witness, dispensing lethal drugs, filing reports, etc., as well as setting intravenous lines and other technical preparations for providing EAS.

Sections 112 and 113 provide protection from civil and criminal liability and disciplinary proceedings for those involved in processing and fulfilling EAS requests if they act in accordance with the law. Section 113(4) extends this protection to omissions in accordance with the bill, but not to the refusals it permits.  Since “omission” does not mean “refusal”, this may reflect either an oversight in drafting or a deliberate decision to expose objecting practitioners to liability.

What could prove to be most contentious is the requirement in Section 19(5)b that an objecting physician give a patient “information approved by the CEO” of a public service department, perhaps a health department.  Whether this will be acceptable to objecting practitioners will depend entirely on the substance of the “approved” information.  It is unlikely to be problematic if it consists of general information about how to contact other physicians or health authorities.  On the other hand, resistance is likely if the “approved” information portrays euthanasia and assisted suicide as morally acceptable services or directs patients to EAS providers.  Objecting practitioners may refuse to comply if the law effectively compels them to express support for moral views they reject, or forces them to facilitate what they consider to be immoral or unethical acts by directing patients to EAS providers.

The SNC-Lavalin affair raises the issue of politicians’ conflict between their conscience and party politics.

There are good reasons to favour conscience.

Policy Options

Brian Bird

The SNC-Lavalin affair, which continues to reverberate, raises many issues in a democracy dominated by political parties — and all these issues take on greater relevance with a federal election approaching. One of them is the conflict that can arise between the conscience of a politician and the strictures of party politics, in a variety of contexts, and how that conflict should be resolved. When our representatives are voting on legislation, there are good reasons to favour conscience. . . [Full Text]