Doctors in Spain who oppose the practice of abortion suffer “brutal discrimination”, according to the general coordinator of the National Association for the Defense of the Right to Conscientious Objection.

Attorney, José Antonio Díez, made the statement following a ruling by the Constitutional Court (TC) of Spain declaring that the “right to abortion” is violated when a hospital administration refers a woman who wants to have an abortion to a private establishment if the doctors at the public health facility did not object to performing abortions in writing and in advance.

The case dates back to 2014, when the Health Service of the autonomous community of Murcia referred a 35-year-old pregnant woman to a private abortion center in Madrid, alleging that there were no doctors willing to provide an abortion in the region’s public health system.

However, according to the TC, the abortion “has to be carried out in the centers of the public health network of the autonomous community itself, except in supposedly exceptional cases in which the public health service cannot facilitate it due to widespread conscientious objection.”

The Constitutional Court ruled that “in the prosecuted case it was not proven” that the doctors had exercised that right individually, in advance and in writing.