Abortion activists unveil their strategy for attacking conscientious objection
by Michael Cook, MercatorNet:
An “expert group” of abortion activists has launched a strong attack on the concept and practice of conscientious objection (CO) in healthcare. “The practice of refusing to provide legal and essential health care due to a doctor’s personal or religious beliefs is a violation of medical ethics and of patients’ right to health care,” says the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) in conjunction with Mujer y Salud en Uruguay.
A 46-page report, Unconscionable: When Providers Deny Abortion Care, argues that “the practice of refusing to provide legal and essential health care due to a doctor’s personal or religious beliefs is a violation of medical ethics and of patients’ right to health care”. The conclusions of the report are based on a meeting held in Montevideo, Uruguay, last year which brought together 45 participants from 22 countries, including the leading theorist of the attack on CO, bioethicist Udo Schuklenk, of Queen’s University, in Canada.
The IWHC is one of the best-resourced feminist NGOs, with links to other large NGOs and US$12 million in revenue in 2017. On its 24-member board sit a powerful group of philanthropists, merchant bankers and lawyers. It is active in lobbying in the United Nations and Capitol Hill. So the recommendations of its conference on CO are bound to resonate throughout the world of abortion activism, but especially in Europe, the United States and Latin America.
The IWHC view is that people who invoke their consciences are usually playing a power game and trying to impose their own morality on the desperate and vulnerable women who are seeking abortions. But the delegates to its conference could not quantify what it describes as “a worrisome and growing global trend”.
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