Nearly one hundred doctors in Uruguay filed a lawsuit on Dec. 7, arguing
that the country's new abortion norms to not allow for conscientious
objection.
According to the newspaper El Observador, the doctors state that
because they are directly responsible for implementing and administering
the regulations, they feel obliged to denounce “several grave
illegalities” they contain.
The abortion law took effect on Dec. 3, when it was signed by President
Jose Mujica. Fifteen pro-life groups in the country are collecting
signatures for a referendum to revoke the measure, as Uruguay's
Catholics bishops continue to voice their opposition to it.
The physicians, who belong to the association Doctors for Health and
for Life, charge that the norms “seek to limit fundamental rights
guaranteed by the Constitution,” such as “independence in the moral and
civic conscience of every dependent worker.”
The conscience clause in the regulations is “restricted to the
execution of an abortion and to the personnel that directly participates
in such execution.”
“There are other aspects of the Law which health care personnel might
object to, and such a right is explicitly excluded from this decree,”
the doctors said.
Conscientious objection to performing a abortion by health care workers
is also prohibited if the attending doctor determines that it would
threaten the woman’s health.
“The life of the mother must always be safeguarded, but the decree
arbitrarily defines the concept of 'grave risk to health,' eliminating
the word 'grave' and including 'any risk to the bio-psycho-social health
of the mother, whether they are grave or not,'” the doctors added.
Uruguay’s abortion law requires that women seeking the procedure
receive counseling from a team of health care experts, including
information on the choice of adoption, but “these tasks are omitted from
the duties that experts that make up the team are supposed to carry
out,” the doctors said.
Such restrictions turn the team of experts into a mere “preamble for abortion,” they said.