12 October 2010
Media Release

Primacy of Conscience Upheld - Council of Europe

Right to Life applauds the decision of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to uphold the right of medical practitioners to follow their conscience in refusing to be involved in the killing of unborn children. Doctors in Europe will no longer be compelled to refer women seeking an abortion to a doctor who will facilitate an abortion. This is an historic reversal that reaffirms the historical codes of medical ethics, such as the Hippocratic Oath and the Declaration of Geneva. The Council of Europe has reaffirmed the fundamental value of human conscience, and of liberty in the face of the manipulation of science and of medicine. The Assembly's new text is titled "The Right to Conscientious Objection in Lawful Medical Care." it states:

"No one hospital, institution or person may be subject to pressures, or be held liable or suffer discrimination of any kind for refusing to perform, allow or assist an abortion, miscarriage or induced euthanasia, or for refusing to perform any intervention to cause the death of foetus or an embryo, whatever the reasons."

The reassertion of conscience in the practice of medicine is important for medicine for civilisation and for the protection of the right to life of every member of the community. To subjugate conscience to the dictates of the ruling elite is to invite a repeat of the horrendous crimes against humanity that were abhorred and condemned at the Nuremburg trials that followed the second World War. This is a significant victory for a culture of life and a decisive defeat for a culture of death. The assertion that the killing of unborn children was a human right that could not be challenged and resisted by doctors of conscience has been rejected.

This decision of the European Parliament has immediate importance for the practice of medicine in New Zealand. The New Zealand Medical Council has produced a draft document titled "Beliefs and Medical Practice" The draft document requires a medical practitioner to ensure a woman who is ambivalent about her pregnancy, "is offered access to objective information or assistance to enable her to make informed decisions on all available options for her pregnancy including termination."

In the event that the doctor, on the grounds of conscience, is not prepared to provide advice on abortion the doctor, is obliged to inform the woman requesting the service that she may obtain that service from another health practitioner or a Family Planning clinic.
Right to Life contends that the above requirements are an infringement on the conscience of medical practitioners and constitute a violation of human rights and are contrary to the legal requirements of the Council of Europe.
Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom to enable him to make moral decisions. He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience, nor must he be prevented from acting according to his informed conscience. Our conscience enables us to do good and avoid evil.

The Abortion Supervisory Committee in 2009 produced a resource titled, "Best Practice Termination of Pregnancy," for general practitioners which included directions which would invoke similar violations of conscience. Right to Life calls upon both the Medical Council and the Abortion Supervisory Committee, to amend the above publications to protect the conscience of doctors and clinicians.

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