On Thursday October 7th, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted to substantially revise a resolution that challenged the rights of people involved in the provision of health services to not be required to engage in actions that they feel violate their consciences.

The key Draft Recommendations in the Report were voted down (51 votes to 56) and the resulting document even had its name changed from:

‘Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection’ to ‘The Right to Conscientious Objection in Lawful Medical Care.’

On Thursday evening CARE issued the following statement:

‘CARE is delighted that the Draft Recommendation of the McCafferty Report was not passed and that the Draft Resolution was substantially revised. This afternoon the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has done what the Council of Europe should do. It has stood against those who would like to play fast and loose with the important role played by conscience in our liberal democratic traditions which the Council exists to champion. We in Europe must cherish our Liberal Democratic traditions and the important role that conscience has played and continues to play in them. A key constitutional freedom has today very properly been upheld.’

The day before the vote CARE for Europe jointly hosted a public meeting with the European Centre for Law and Justice and the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe highlighting the problems with the proposed report.

One of the speakers at the event, Dr Andrew Fergusson, a former Chairman of the Professional Conduct Committees at the UK General Medical Council, underlined that every medical practitioner has a professional duty and that “ever since Hippocrates, the practice of medicine has been founded in a number of core ethical values. Practising good medicine is a moral activity and not just a technical one. The foundational values of medicine are part of physicians’ understanding of who they are and they have provided the basis for historical codes of medical ethics, such as the Hippocratic Oath, the Declaration of Geneva, and the UK General Medical Council’s Good Medical Practice. These core ethical values become part of the physician’s understanding of who they are and what they have entered medicine for. They are central to the doctor’s self identity. And when a person is coerced by employers, or by the power of the state, to act in a way which transgresses these core ethical values then their internal moral integrity is damaged.”

The second speaker, Spaniard Javier Borrego Borrego, former judge at the European Court of Human Rights emphasized that freedom of conscience is a fundamental right. ‘A restriction of conscientious objection in health care is a threat for the fundamental freedoms in Europe. The proposed text also breaches the principle of subsidiarity, a fundamental value with regard to democracy in Europe, yet another mission of the Council of Europe. Care for Europe, the European Centre for Law and Justice and the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe call on the Parliamentary Assembly to respect the very same values that are the foundation and the mission of the Council of Europe.’

In a statement Lord Alton thanked the work of Senator Ronan Mullen, CARE and Right To Life for their work on behalf of Doctors.