By Marie Smith
Editor’s note. The following is excerpted from a post that appeared at the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues (http://pncius.org).
Three words – access to abortion – are at the center of pro-abortion strategies. The growing number of doctors and health care personnel who refuse to perform or participate in abortion has dramatically reduced “access to abortion” around the world and pro-abortion activists are devising tactics to overcome universal ethical, moral and religious objections to abortion.

Dr. Christian Fiala
A new article on the topic –“Dishonourable disobedience”- Why refusal to treat in reproductive healthcare is not conscientious objection -gives insight into radical proposals to eliminate conscientious objection (CO) as stated in the opening salvo: “CO in reproductive healthcare should be dealt with like any other failure to perform one’s professional duty, through enforcement and disciplinary measures. Counteracting institutional CO may require governmental or even international intervention.”
Appearing in the journal Woman-Psychosomatic Gynaecology and Obstetrics, of the International Society of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology, the article is the work of two leading pro-abortion activists–Dr. Christian Fiala, an abortionist in Austria, and Joyce Arthur, founder and Executive Director of Canada’s national pro-choice group, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC). The authors begin by noting that conscientious objection (CO) originated in the belief that taking human life under any circumstance is evil, especially in military service and move to current day use…”
…The authors even quote Saint John Paul II from Evangelium Vitae: “Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws; instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection.”
But the article quickly blends current laws and policies on conscientious objection with pro-abortion arguments, data from pro-abortion research organizations, select pro-abortion news items and pro-abortion papers to advance complete opposition to any use of conscientious objection. The authors state that when a health care professional asserts their right to refusal based on personal beliefs it is what they have named “dishonourable disobedience,” described as “an ethical breach that should be handled in the same way as any other professional negligence or malpractice, or a mental incapacity to perform one’s duties”. They propose that anyone seeking to claim a right to conscientious objection has two options– “they should quit the field of reproductive healthcare, or not get involved in it at all”, claiming these two options “represent the only honest exercise of CO in medicine.”
The authors present conscientious objection as an abuse exploited by the “anti-choice movement” and “anti-choice” healthcare personnel and propose “remedies” to reduce the number of “anti-choice healthcare workers in the field of reproductive healthcare” including:
- Everyone aspiring to enter health professions that involve reproductive healthcare should be required to declare that they will not allow their personal beliefs to interfere with their management of patients to the point of discrimination.
- Medical students entering the Ob/Gyn specialty should be informed about the full scope of the specialty, including treating women with unwanted pregnancies. Students should be rejected if they do not wish to learn and prescribe contraception or perform abortions for CO reasons.
- All Ob/Gyns should be required to dispense birth control and perform abortions as part of their practice (unless there is a legitimate medical or professional reason not to).
- Institutional CO should be completely prohibited for health systems and businesses that serve the general public.
- Monitoring and enforcement measures should be put into place to ensure that prohibitions on CO are followed. Doctors should be sanctioned when they violate laws or codes of ethics that prohibit CO. Disciplinary measures could include a review process, an official reprimand and order to correct, and could escalate to loss of medical license, dismissal, or even criminal charges.
- Patients should be legally entitled to sue and to claim compensation for any physical or mental harm, and for additional costs resulting from the refusal to treat. …
The article acknowledges that “Implementing such measures may seem like a daunting task given the ongoing stigma against abortion and the strength of the anti-choice movement. But with political will much could be done at local, national, and international levels to ensure that contraception and abortion services are widely available and accessible to all who need them.”
Actions to limit conscientious objection are likely to continue to increase in all venues.