Re-Thinking the Use of Conscientious Objection by Health Professionals: A Regulatory Proposal Based on Legal Abortion Practices in Argentina

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Ariza Navarrete ◽  
Agustina Ramón Michel
Keyword(s):  
Health Professionals ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Legal Abortion

scholarly journals Difficulties and Rights of Women in Pregnancy of Anencephalic Fetuses

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
Keyword(s):  
Health Professionals ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Medical Professional ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Legal Abortion ◽  
Risk Of Death ◽  
Abortion Care ◽  
Specialized Services ◽  
The Right ◽  
In Pregnancy

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.

scholarly journals Conscientious Objection in Healthcare and Moral Integrity

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK WICCLAIR
Keyword(s):  
Health Professionals ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Alternative Conceptions ◽  
Moral Integrity ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Moral Space ◽  
Social Component ◽  
Intellectual Integrity ◽  
Moral Convictions

Abstract:There are several reasons for accommodating health professionals’ conscientious objections. However, several authors have argued that among the most important and compelling reasons is to enable health professionals to maintain their moral integrity. Accommodation is said to provide “moral space” in which health professionals can practice without compromising their moral integrity. There are, however, alternative conceptions of moral integrity and corresponding different criteria for moral-integrity-based claims. It is argued that one conception of moral integrity, the identity conception, is sound and suitable in the specific context of responding to health professionals’ conscientious objections and their requests for accommodation. According to the identity conception, one maintains one’s moral integrity if and only if one’s actions are consistent with one’s core moral convictions. The identity conception has been subject to a number of criticisms that might call into question its suitability as a standard for determining whether health professionals have genuine moral-integrity-based accommodation claims. The following five objections to the identity conception are critically examined: (1) it does not include a social component, (2) it is a conception of subjective rather than objective integrity, (3) it does not include a reasonableness condition, (4) it does not include any substantive moral constraints, and (5) it does not include any intellectual integrity requirement. In response to these objections, it is argued that none establishes the unsuitability of the identity conception in the specific context of responding to health professionals’ conscientious objections and their requests for accommodation.

scholarly journals Junior doctors and conscientious objection to voluntary assisted dying: ethical complexity in practice

2021 ◽  
pp. medethics-2020-107125
Author(s):  
Rosalind J McDougall ◽  
Ben P White ◽  
Danielle Ko ◽  
Louise Keogh ◽  
Lindy Willmott
Keyword(s):  
Health Professionals ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Career Progression ◽  
Junior Doctors ◽  
Assisted Dying ◽  
Moral Integrity ◽  
Institutional Policies ◽  
Australian State ◽  
Specific Support ◽  
Ethical Complexity

In jurisdictions where voluntary assisted dying (VAD) is legal, eligibility assessments, prescription and administration of a VAD substance are commonly performed by senior doctors. Junior doctors’ involvement is limited to a range of more peripheral aspects of patient care relating to VAD. In the Australian state of Victoria, where VAD has been legal since June 2019, all health professionals have a right under the legislation to conscientiously object to involvement in the VAD process, including provision of information about VAD. While this protection appears categorical and straightforward, conscientious objection to VAD-related care is ethically complex for junior doctors for reasons that are specific to this group of clinicians. For junior doctors wishing to exercise a conscientious objection to VAD, their dependence on their senior colleagues for career progression creates unique risks and burdens. In a context where senior colleagues are supportive of VAD, the junior doctor’s subordinate position in the medical hierarchy exposes them to potential significant harms: compromising their moral integrity by participating, or compromising their career progression by objecting. In jurisdictions intending to provide all health professionals with meaningful conscientious objection protection in relation to VAD, strong specific support for junior doctors is needed through local institutional policies and culture.

scholarly journals Freedom of conscience in Europe? An analysis of three cases of midwives with conscientious objection to abortion

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Fleming ◽  
Beate Ramsayer ◽  
Teja Škodič Zakšek
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
The European Union ◽  
European Level ◽  
Major Area ◽  
Documentary Analysis ◽  
Opt Out ◽  
Church Law

While abortion has been legal in most developed countries for many years, the topic remains controversial. A major area of controversy concerns women’s rights vis-a-vis the rights of health professionals to opt out of providing the service on conscience grounds. Although scholars from various disciplines have addressed this issue in the literature, there is a lack of empirical research on the topic. This paper provides a documentary analysis of three examples of conscientious objection on religious grounds to performing abortion-related care by midwives in different Member States of the European Union, two of which have resulted in legal action. These examples show that as well as the laws of the respective countries and the European Union, professional and church law each played a part in the decisions made. However, support from both professional and religious sources was inconsistent both within and between the examples. The authors conclude that there is a need for clear guidelines at both local and pan-European level for health professionals and recommend a European-wide forum to develop and test them.

Conscience, Abortion and Jurisdiction

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 819-845
Author(s):  
Sheelagh McGuinness ◽  
Michael Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Health Professionals ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Market Control ◽  
Professional Obligations ◽  
Abortion Care ◽  
Private Beliefs

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.

scholarly journals Quotas: Enabling Conscientious Objection to Coexist with Abortion Access

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Rodger ◽  
Bruce P. Blackshaw
Keyword(s):  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Legal Abortion ◽  
Moral Integrity ◽  
Quota System ◽  
Medical Trainees ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Provision Of Services ◽  
Abortion Access

AbstractThe debate regarding the role of conscientious objection in healthcare has been protracted, with increasing demands for curbs on conscientious objection. There is a growing body of evidence that indicates that in some cases, high rates of conscientious objection can affect access to legal medical services such as abortion—a major concern of critics of conscientious objection. Moreover, few solutions have been put forward that aim to satisfy both this concern and that of defenders of conscientious objection—being expected to participate in the provision of services that compromise their moral integrity. Here we attempt to bring some resolution to the debate by proposing a pragmatic, long-term solution offering what we believe to be an acceptable compromise—a quota system for medical trainees in specialties where a conscientious objection can be exercised, and is known to cause conflict. We envisage two main objectives of the quota system we propose. First, as a means to introduce conscientious objection into countries where this is not presently permitted. Second, to minimise or eliminate the effects of high rates of conscientious objection in countries such as Italy, where access to legal abortion provision can be negatively affected.

Conscientious Objection in Reproductive Health Care: Analysis of Pichon and Sajous v. France

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriana Lamačková
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Reproductive Health ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Reproductive Health Care ◽  
Health Care Context ◽  
The Right

AbstractThis article explores the issue of conscientious objection invoked by health professionals in the reproductive and sexual health care context and its impact on women's ability to access health services. The right to exercise conscientious objection has been recognized by many international and European scholars as being derived from the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. It is not, however, an absolute right. When the exercise of conscientious objection conflicts with other human rights and fundamental freedoms, a balance must be struck between the right to conscientious objection and other affected rights such as the right to respect for private life, the right to equality and non-discrimination, and the right to receive and impart information. Particularly in the reproductive health care context, states that allow health professionals to exercise conscientious objection must accommodate this in such a way that its exercise does not compromise women's access to health services. This article analyses the European Court of Human Rights' decision on admissibility in Pichon and Sajous v. France (2001) and argues that a balancing approach should be applied in cases of conscientious objection in the sexual and reproductive health care context.

Prevalence of conscientious objection to legal abortion among clinicians in northern Ghana

2017 ◽  
Vol 140 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
John K. Awoonor-Williams ◽  
Peter Baffoe ◽  
Philip K. Ayivor ◽  
Chris Fofie ◽  
Sheila Desai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Northern Ghana ◽  
Legal Abortion

scholarly journals Conscientious objection to provision of legal abortion care

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