Conscientious Objection: Rule of Law, Sexual and Reproductive Rights, and Scientific Reasonable Doubts

Abstract

International, European, and a wide range of national regulations have made legally compulsory the provision of some goods and services related to sexual and reproductive rights. This mandatory rule of law has provoked a moral conflict among many healthcare providers, not unlike that which happened to some citizens when military service was also compulsory in their countries. Due to this moral conflict, the conscientious objection has been also recognized to healthcare providers, regarding some practices required by those compulsory norms. However, the rule of law has focused its legislative efforts on excluding or reducing the exercise of conscientious objection, which is officially targeted as the main reason access to sexual and reproductive services is so limited.

Conscientious objectors act not only on religious grounds but also on scientific ones, based on their beliefs of the existence of reasonable doubts in sound science issues related to abortion, contraception, assisted reproduction, or sex reassignment surgery. They try to protect the right to life of a possible human entity by exercising another fundamental right: an omission that is now labelled as an almost unjustifiable limit to another person’s access to goods or services related to his or her sexual and reproductive rights. This fact should be acknowledged by the rule of law when legislative processes are developed in order to protect the freedom of conscience for healthcare providers. The conciliation between these two sets of rights, both claiming protection of the right to life for different individuals, could be done with a more ecological approach, institutionally respecting and protecting the diversity of founded opinions and beliefs.