UNFPA head promotes aggressive approach to “reproductive rights”

Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, has published and editorial that extols the passage of the Philippines Reproductive Health Act.  He argues that “family planning is a long established human right” and makes a claim for “reproductive rights,” and asserts that it is necessary to “tear down . . . barriers that prevent [people] from accessing information and services.”

Uruguay’s Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy Act

 Protection of conscience provisions may be defined out of existence

Sean Murphy*

In the fall of 2012 the Uruguayan legislature passed the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy Act, which legalized abortion in the country under certain circumstances.  By January, 2013, Reuters was reporting that the law was meeting “fierce opposition” among Uruguayan gynaecologists, with up to a third of them refusing to provide the procedure for reasons of conscience;1 in some locations, almost none will do so. . . Full Text

Uruguay Abortion Law: Protection of Conscience Provisions

Sean Murphy*

The Act legalizing abortion in Uruguay, passed in the fall of 2012, includes two protection of conscience provisions.

Section 10 provides protection for existing health care institutions that are part of the National Integrated Health System if they had ideological objections to abortion at the time the law was enacted.  They are not required to provide abortion, but “may” reach an agreement with the Ministry of Public Health to arrange for their patients to have abortions elsewhere.  If “may” is understood to mean that such arrangements are optional, institutional freedom of conscience will not be compromised.  However, it appears that all hospitals that are part of the National Integrated Health System that are opened from this point on will be required to provide abortions.

Section 11 allows conscientious objection by health care workers, but this is limited by the meaning given to “health” in Section 6A.

[Protection of concience provisions: Spanish/English]

 

Conscientious Abortions?

  We Don’t Need New Laws Protecting Abortionists

  • Richard M. Doerflinger* |  If we legally protect a “right of conscience” to refuse to assist or perform abortions, shouldn’t we also protect “conscience-based” decisions to provide abortions? So asks Dr. Lisa Harris of the University of Michigan, in a recent commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine (further publicized at a Washington Post blog).
    Full Text

 

‘Obsessive Political Correctness’ Trumps Freedom of Conscience

 European Court of Human Rights Gives Ruling on Religious Freedom Cases

ROME, January 16, 2013 (Zenit.org).

Today, the Fourth Section of the European Court of Human Rights has issued an important ruling on freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. While it contains some positive language regarding the wearing of religious symbols, the ruling is deeply worrisome with regards to the freedom to act according to one’s individual conscience. [Read on]