UN Group Says Government Must Force Medical Personnel to Provide Abortions

Jan 17, 2025 by

By Stefano Gennarini, C-Fam:

A group of UN human rights experts have called for governments to clamp down on conscientious objection to abortion by hospitals, doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel.

In a report published this week, the UN working group on discrimination against women and girls claims that governments have an international obligation to force all hospitals to provide abortions, including religious hospitals. The report goes as far as describing institutional conscientious objection as “impermissible” and a “human rights violation.”

“States must prevent and reform laws that overextend conscientious objection and that allow sexist and patriarchal personal beliefs to determine the provision of health care,” the report explains.

The working group, made up of five feminist activists and academics, claims that conscience rights do not apply to institutions, but only to real persons and that even in such cases they must be “narrowly defined”.

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