In a mixed judgement, a German Court has acquitted a pharmacist of breach of professional duty for refusing to stock and sell abortifacient drugs.

However, the judge warned him that if he can’t dispense certain drugs for reasons of conscience, he would have to give up the profession.

Andreas Kersten was charged in 2018 when he exercised his freedom of conscience to refrain from selling a potentially abortifacient drug, the “morning-after pill,” in his pharmacy. The Court held that Kersten was relying on a letter from the federal Ministry for Health, which stated that pharmacists may exercise their conscience in such situations.

However, the presiding judge explained that the duty to provide drugs (including the morning-after-pill) overrides the freedom of conscience – a stance at odds with international human rights law protecting conscience. He noted that a pharmacist who could not reconcile the dispensing of certain drugs with his conscience would have to give up his profession.

Dr Felix Böllmann of ADF International, which has supported Kersten’s case for six years welcomed his client’s exoneration but called the reasoning behind the judgment “egregious” as it is “in direct contradiction to international law”.