Medical conscientious objectors must be protected
4 min read
My Conscientious Objection Bill will ensure no medical practitioner is coerced by the risk to their careers into violating their moral beliefs, writes Baroness O’Loan
Our country has an honourable tradition of accommodating conscientious objection, both in law and practice, but it is one that has not always been consistently applied.
Later this year we will commemorate the end of the First World War, a terrible conflict into which men were conscripted from 1916 onwards. Quakers, radical socialists, and other pacifists were subject to ridicule for refusing to fight, but were allowed to assist the war effort in alternative ways. Some served bravely as stretcher-bearers and ambulance drivers, dodging bullets as they took wounded soldiers off the battlefield. The moral authenticity of some, however, was not believed by military tribunals, leading to especially punitive imprisonment (hard labour) on top of the stigma they received.
Today, we are more consistent in respectfully treating those who believe with integrity that they cannot be involved in the taking of human life, however naïve and misguided we may believe their position to be.
The European Court of Human Rights has rightly interpreted the Article 9 right to “freedom to... manifest belief” to include conscientious objection. In Bayatyan v. Armenia (2011), the Court voided the Armenian conviction of Jehovah’s Witness Vahan Bayatyan in 2002, for his refusal to perform military service at a time when no alternative was available.
Respect for conscience has also informed our own domestic legislation. When the Abortion Act 1967 and Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (which legalised embryo-destructive forms of research) were constructed, both included ‘conscience clauses’ establishing that “no person” would be “under any duty” of “participation” in any “treatment” or “activity” they authorised. Both laws require, as in war, for the burden of proof of conscientious objection to fall on the objector.
Since Parliament passed those provisions however, their application has been narrowed in both jurisprudence and medical practice. In Greater Glasgow Health Board v Doogan & Anor (2014), the Supreme Court interpreted ‘participation’ in the Abortion Act’s conscience clause to only mean direct performance. All right for surgeons, but this meant that nurses and midwives who conscientiously object to material involvement enabling the procedure were stripped of formal statutory protections.
Further, a 2016 ad hoc cross-party inquiry into freedom of conscience in abortion provision specifically, received accounts by medical professionals who ethically object to that practice and who experience discrimination during their work life due to their beliefs.
That is why I have introduced my Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill, which seeks to affirm as a matter of statute that nobody shall be under any duty to participate in activities they believe to take a human life. That means either in the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, or in any activity authorised by the 1967 and 1990 Acts (including activity required to prepare for, support or perform them). Such a reform would re-establish legal protections for medical conscientious objectors, and re-affirm the Article 9 rights of healthcare workers.
I believe this is a timely Bill that should attract support across both Houses. Reasonable accommodation of conscientious objection is a matter both of liberty and equality: of individual freedom and social inclusion. No one should be coerced by the risk to their careers into violating their conscience, and it is plainly inconsistent with the principles of equality legislation to exclude whole sections of society from areas of medical employment simply because of their moral beliefs.
In 2018, as we remember all those who suffered in the Great War, including those who objected to participating in fighting, I hope we will give statutory protection to those medical practitioners who wish to act in accordance with their conscience.
Baroness O'Loan is a crossbench peer. The second reading of the Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill is on Friday 26th January.
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