Questionable benefits and unavoidable personal beliefs: defending conscientious objection for abortion

Abstract

Conscientious objection in healthcare has come under heavy criticism on two grounds recently, particularly regarding abortion provision. First, critics claim conscientious objection involves a refusal to provide a legal and beneficial procedure requested by a patient, denying them access to healthcare. Second, they argue the exercise of conscientious objection is based on unverifiable personal beliefs. These characteristics, it is claimed, disqualify conscientious objection in healthcare. Here, we defend conscientious objection in the context of abortion provision. We show that abortion has a dubitable claim to be medically beneficial, is rarely clinically indicated, and that conscientious objections should be accepted in these circumstances. We also show that reliance on personal beliefs is difficult to avoid if any form of objection is to be permitted, even if it is based on criteria such as the principles and values of the profession or the scope of professional practice.

Quotas: Enabling Conscientious Objection to Coexist with Abortion Access

“…It is also conceivable that in the future, some practices that are currently legal may come to be regarded negatively and eventually be banned, and conscientious objection may be an important part of that process. 4 Holly Fernandez Lynch adds that prohibiting conscientious objection is likely to reduce diversity in the healthcare profession, which is valuable to patients [39]. She also suggests that if the right to object on moral grounds is prohibited, this may contribute to public distrust of the healthcare profession [39].…”

Medical and midwifery students’ views on the use of conscientious objection in abortion care, following legal reform in Chile: a cross-sectional study

“…Conscientious objection emerged as a means to allow people to refuse to participate in military service due to personal beliefs. It has expanded to also allow health care professionals to refuse to provide reproductive health care, and in particular abortion care [1][2][3]. However, the assumption that conscience-based refusals need to be accommodated in abortion care has recently been challenged [4][5][6].…”

Conscientious objection and systemic injustice

“…Indeed, objections to abortions in healthy pregnancies could be made on professional grounds, as the abortion would not treat a pathology or benefit the health of the mother. 13,20,22 Yet, it is likely that such an objection would not be brought on professional grounds unless the practitioner had a concurrent CO to abortion (though such a professional objection would be valid by itself, or in conjunction with other non-CO related reasons). It is not that these distinctions might not be important for the larger CO debate or that some of these arguments might hold to philosophical scrutiny and others will not, but that they are not relevant to the focus of this paper.…”