Conscientious objection in abortion care

BMJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. k131
Author(s):  
James W Gerrard
2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 819-845
Author(s):  
Sheelagh McGuinness ◽  
Michael Thomson

Abstract Conscientious objection has achieved a particular place in contemporary law and culture. Lawyers, political theorists, ethicists, health professionals and others have debated how we best negotiate the tensions that can exist between professional obligations and private beliefs. Conscientious objection to abortion care has been a particular focus of these discussions. In this article, we draw on theoretical work on ‘jurisdiction’ to provide an account of what is embedded in claims to conscience and what the effects of such claims are. We focus specifically on refusals of abortion care enabled by section 4 of the Abortion Act 1967. We argue that legitimating narratives on conscience seek to achieve seemingly contradictory goals: entrenching abortion as morally ambiguous while securing it as part of medicine’s monopolistic practice. While section 4 provides the focus, our concerns extend to the wider landscape and impact of claims to conscience. Through our jurisdictional analysis, we seek to better understand such claims and dramatically reorient thinking by grounding the conscience clause squarely in the politics of ‘task areas’, professional domains, market control and claims of epistemological authority.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (7) ◽  
pp. 23-36
Author(s):  
Eveline Oliveira Girão Castro ◽  
Cláudio Couto Lóssio Neto ◽  
Antonio Marlos Duarte de Melo ◽  
Jucier Gonçalves Júnior ◽  
Athena De Albuquerque Farias

Abstract: Despite a series of advances in the establishment of specialized services for women in all regions of the country, many still face great difficulties in accessing abortion services.  Even in relation to anencephaly, there are still challenges for the proper structuring of legal abortion services, as it is difficult to identify health professionals available for abortion care permitted by law.  This article discusses the issues involved in these cases.  It was concluded that, due to the moral and religious stigma, there is a refusal of doctors related to the practice of abortion, despite the existence of Brazilian technical norms that regulate this practice.  However, the right to conscientious objection is not necessarily recognized in the absence of another medical professional to assist women when there is a risk of death.  Keywords: Anencephaly, Abortion, Women's Rights.


2013 ◽  
Vol 123 ◽  
pp. S60-S62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke R. Johnson ◽  
Eszter Kismödi ◽  
Monica V. Dragoman ◽  
Marleen Temmerman

Law and World ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-144

The Article concerns the legal issues, connected with the situation, when a person (or group of people) disobey requirements of the Law or other State regulations on the basis of religious or nonreligious belief. The Author analyses almost all related issues – whether imposing certain obligation on individuals, to which the individual has a conscientious objection based on his/her religious beliefs, always represents interference with his/her religion rights, and if it does, then what is subject of the interference – forum integrum or forum externum; whether neutral regulation, which does not refer to religion issues at all, could ever be regarded as interference into someone’s religious rights; whether opinion or belief, on which the individual’s objection and the corresponding conduct is based, must necesserily represent the clear “manifest” of the same religion or belief in order to gain legal protection; what is regarded as “manifest” of the religion or other belief in general and whether a close and direct link must exist between personal conduct and requirements of the religious or nonreligious belief; what are the criteria of the “legitimacy” of the belief; to what extent the following factors should be taken into consideration : whether the personal conduct of the individual represents the official requirements of corresponding religion or belief, what is the burden which was imposed on the believer’s religious or moral feelings by the State regulation, also, proportionality and degree of sincerity of the individual who thinks that his disobidience to the Law is required by his/her religious of philosofical belief. The effects (direct or non direct) of the nonfulfilment of the law requirement (legal responsibility, lost of the job, certain discomfort, etc..) are relevant factors as well. By the Author, all these circumstances and factors are essencial while estimating, whether it arises, actually, a real necessity and relevant obligation before a state for making some exemptions from the law to the benefi t of the conscientious objectors, in cases, if to predict such an objection was possible at all. So, the issues are discussed in the prism of the negative and positive obligations of a State. Corresponding precedents of the US Supreme Court and European Human Rights Court have been presented and analysed comparatively by the Author in the Article. The Article contains an important resume, in which the main points, principal issues and conclusion remarks are delivered. The Author shows, that due analysis of the legal aspects typical to “Conscientious objection” is very important for deep understanding religious rights, not absolute ones, and facilitates finding a correct answer on the question – how far do their boundaries go?


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