The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will vote next week on a report which could drastically weaken freedom of conscience for healthcare professionals across Europe.

 The report says that conscientious objection should be limited to doctors and nurses but not to medical institutions like hospitals, that doctors and nurses with an objection to a procedure such as abortion must refer the patient to someone who does not have such an objection, and that in ‘emergencies’ they must carry out the procedures themselves.

The report, entitled “Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection”, also suggests that States should compel health-care providers to perform euthanasia on patients under certain circumstances and that a ‘registry of conscientious objectors’ be created.

 PACE, the representative and legislative branch of the Council of Europe, is set to vote on the report on October 7th.

 The report was written by UK Labour MP Catherine McCafferty, a UK representative at PACE.

 CARE Europe, an organisation which defends religious freedom at a Europe-wide level, has tabled a number of amendments to the report.

 CARE recommends that PACE recognise the right of corporate bodies like hospitals to be allowed to have the right to conscientiously object to certain procedures.

 It also suggests that the report to be amended to reaffirm the right of healthcare professionals to conscientiously object to these procedures.

 This would replace the current wording, which calls on Members States to “balance the right of conscientious objection of an individual not to perform a certain medical procedure with the responsibility of the profession and the right of each patient to access lawful medical care in a timely manner”.

 Groups such as the European Centre for Law and Justice(ECLJ), which defend religious freedom at European level, have objected to the resolution, pointing out that the right to conscientious objection is properly dealt with as a national issue, and that the right to freedom of conscience is protected in a number of international human rights documents.

 The ECLJ has produced a memorandum objecting to the resolution, pointing out that unlike abortion, which is not an internationally recognised right “the fundamental rights of religious belief and practice are protected under Articles 9 and 14, among others, of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)”.

 It adds that the right of conscience “finds adequate protection under Article 18 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (of which a large majority of COE Member States are a party) and that “the right to conscientious objection is specifically recognised in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which provides for the “Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion” under Article 10”.

 “Specifically, section 2 of Article 10 states: ‘The right to conscientious objection is recognised, in accordance with the national laws governing the exercise of this right’,” the memo says.

 Ireland’s representatives at PACE can be found here.