A resolution aimed at attacking the right of medical practioners to opt out of performing abortions and other 
procedures they conscientiously object to is set for a vote in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in October.
The draft resolution asks the Member States to oblige healthcare providers “to provide the desired treatment to which the patient is legally entitled despite his or her conscientious objection”.
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 report also asks Member States to create “an effective complaint mechanism” against the objecting healthcare providers.
The Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee approved a draft Report, “Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection” and an associated Resolution, during the June session of the Assembly.
The Report is tabled to be discussed and voted on during the next plenary session of the PACE, between October 4th and 8, 2010, in Strasbourg.
The report focuses mainly on women’s ‘reproductive health care’, normally interpreted to include abortion, but it also concerns some other practices such as assisted reproduction and sterilisation.
The report also mentions “pain-relief by life-shortening means for terminally ill patients,” i.e., active euthanasia.
The resolution asks Member States to restrain the exercise of conscientious objection in order to facilitate access to abortion and other practices.
The draft report expresses concern about the “increasing and largely unregulated occurrence” of conscientious objection arising in the “field of health care when healthcare providers refuse to provide certain health services based on religious, moral or philosophical objections.”
The resolution invites the Member 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.”
This “balance” would “oblige the healthcare provider to provide the desired treatment to which the patient is legally entitled despite his or her conscientious objection.”
In order to implement this obligation, the text asks the Member States to “provide oversight and monitoring (…) of the practice of conscientious objection,” and to create “an effective complaint mechanism” “that can address abuses of the right to conscientious objection and provide women with an effective and timely remedy”.
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.