A leading Spanish lawyer warned this month about the growing risk to pro-life doctors who oppose killing unborn babies in abortions.
Attorney José Antonio Díez, of the National Association for the Defense of the Right to Conscientious Objection in Spain, told ACI Prensa that pro-life doctors are facing “brutal discrimination” as courts rule against conscience protections – and the situation could get worse.
On July 3, the Constitutional Court of Spain ruled against medical workers in Murcia who refused to abort a pregnant mother’s late-term unborn baby, noting “widespread conscientious objection” in the region, according to the report.
The justices said the public medical workers violated the pregnant mother’s “right to abortion” when they refuse to abort her unborn baby girl at six months of pregnancy. If a doctor objects to abortion, they must do so in writing and in advance in order to have their conscience rights protected, the court ruled.
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Díez, an adjunct professor of law at the International University of La Rioja, said the ruling “totally distorts the nature and exercise of a fundamental right such as conscientious objection and seems to want to force public doctors to act against their conscience and their professional ethics.”
He expressed concern that the ruling will lead to a national registry that could be used to “harass” and “discriminate” against doctors who “simply ask for respect and recognition of their rights.”
Here’s more from the report:
“They want to make all the objecting doctors get on a registry that still doesn’t exist with the aim of reducing any resistance to abortion … so that the debate can be closed,” the attorney pointed out.
Díez, who is also a university professor, stressed that “fundamental rights cannot be limited without just cause.” However, he considers that an attempt is being made to “impose a series of obligations to override conscience and the medical lex artis,” the rules that govern a professional duty.
In his opinion, there is a risk that the Constitutional Court “is setting itself up as a legislator to say almost the opposite of what is included in the Spanish Constitution.”
Lawyers and medical experts have expressed similar concerns about the erosion of conscience protections in Ireland, the United States and Australia.
And much to pro-life leaders’ alarm, in 2021, the European Parliament voted to adopt a radical pro-abortion document called the Matic Report, which, among other things, declares abortion to be a “human right” and describes conscience protections for pro-life medical workers as a “denial of medical care.”
Killing unborn babies in abortions is not health care, and most doctors recognize this. A unique, living human being comes into existence at conception, and most doctors understand that both mother and child are patients who deserve care and respect.
