To My Irish and Euro Readers

Senator Ronan Mullen from the Irish Seanad writes:

Dear Mark,

You may have heard about this matter already, in which case apologies for taking up your time. This is just a quick email to report a notable success at the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe in Strasbourg last week. As you can gather from the press release below the Parliamentary Assembly voted in favour of conscientious objection to abortion. The leadership of the EPP group, to which I belong as an ordinary member and led by Italian MP Luca Volonte, played a key role in securing the amendments. Various NGOs worked tirelessly to keep parliamentarians up to speed on the issue.

Kindest regards,

Rónán

News Release – 8th October 2010 – Immediate release

Mullen welcomes “momentous” Council of Europe victory for conscientious objection

Senator Rónán Mullen together with the Chairperson of the European Peoples’
Party at the Council of Europe, Luca Volonte, led the way in pushing through 29 amendments to a report which initially intended to severely restrict the right of medical staff to refuse to participate in procuring an abortion, but which in the end was transformed into a resolution affirming the right to conscientiously object to abortion. The report was widely expected to carry in its original form.

The final resolution of the report read: “no person and no hospital or institution shall be coerced, held liable or discriminated against in any manner because of a refusal to perform, accommodate, assist or submit to an abortion […]”. Remarkably, former British MP Christine. McCafferty, the original author of the report, was forced to vote against the final resolution due to its radical transformation. The report was initially entitled “Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection” but eventually changed to “The right to conscientious objection in lawful medical care”.

According to Senator Mullen, “This is a momentous victory for freedom of conscience and conscientious objection. The initial report rode roughshod over the right to conscientiously object to abortion. If adopted it would have entailed doctors, nurses and institutions being forced against their consciences and ethos to participate in the procurement of abortion.
Thankfully, the adopted resolution is a true vindication of the rights of conscientious objectors to abortion, a right long established in both human rights law and medical ethics.

“It should be remembered that doctors refuse to carry out abortions not only to protect the human rights of the unborn child, but also over increasing concerns about the negative psychological impact abortion can have on women. Mrs McCafferty and her supporters should ask themselves why so many healthcare professionals object to being involved in abortions in the first place. It’s because they regard abortion itself as a breach of human rights, and not part of responsible medical treatment. The initial report was never about protecting women in vulnerable medical circumstances but instead about using that aim, laudable in itself, as a guise for forcing medical professionals to procure abortions.

As we say here in America: “BOO YAH!” Well done, Senator Mullen!