6533b861fe1ef96bd12c4c09

RESEARCH PRODUCT

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

Agustina Ramón MichelSonia Ariza Navarrete

subject

medicine.medical_specialtyHealth professionalsConscientious objectorPublic healthLegislationAbortionLawPolitical scienceFreedom of religionparasitic diseasesmedicineLegal abortionreproductive and urinary physiologyLegalization

description

“Ninety percent of health-care practitioners will not perform abortions,” warned physicians in Chaco, a province in north-eastern Argentina, during the debate in Argentina’s Senate to extend the legalization of abortion in July 2018. Around this same time, in a nearby province, Misiones, every physician in one hospital declared that they would register as conscientious objectors should the legislation prove successful. Just a few days earlier, Argentina’s press reported that more than 200 girls had been raped and forced to give birth in Misiones, without access to legal abortion under the rape indication. In Argentina abortion is legally permitted in cases where a pregnancy presents a risk to the life or health of the pregnant woman or person and in cases of rape.

https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3380668