abortion center

Conscientious objection: Can health centers refuse to perform abortions in the three causes?

by El Mostrador Braga

August 25, 2017
Conscientious objection: Can health centers refuse to perform abortions in the three causes?

Although there are no official figures on how many health professionals will be conscientious objectors for the termination of pregnancy in three causes, there are already places that have manifested the institutional objection.
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The institutional conscientious objection for the abortion law in three grounds continues in the middle of the discussion. After the Constitutional Court gave its approval so that the bill of decriminalization of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy in three causes can be promulgated, there are still doubts about how the application of conscientious objection will be.

While on Monday 28 will be known the ruling in its entirety and the pronouncement of the judges on the controversial point, there are already different sectors and institutions that have pronounced saying they will not perform the procedures in their precincts.

The rector of the Pontificia Universidad Católica (PUC), Ignacio Sánchez, insisted - as he has maintained since the project was presented - that his medical institutions will not perform abortions, except in the case of the risk of life of the mother since They consider it an abortion.

The problem is in the causes of fetal infeasibility and, above all, of rape, where they suggest that the patient be referred to another health center. "Always the vital risk is out of the question, there no doctor can raise conscientious objection to the treatment of a mother who is risking her life, if not that what we are talking about here, are patients who electively, in a non-urgent way , they make a decision and we will make the agreements with the public and private sectors to be able to make a timely and safe intervention, "said the rector of Radio Biobio.

The statements aroused concern, especially in the Government and in the medical profession. That is why the Health Minister, Carmen Castillo questioned that the project is conditioned, in any of the causes. "When a woman's life is at risk, you can not wait for a doctor who is not a conscientious objector, there you have to intervene, yes or yes, or if it will not be an audit and after opinions that may reach the judicial is that there is a problem that is not acted applying the lex artis as appropriate, "Castillo said in the same medium.

The concern is not minor since in addition to the UC Health Network, the Parish Hospitals of San Bernardo and San Francisco de Pucón would also declare their institutional conscience objection. if the resolution of the TC eliminates from the law that this right is only "of a personal nature and that in no case may it be invoked by an institution", as it has transpired.

Although these precincts depend on the Church and not on the public health network, they receive state resources for attending Auge / GES patients.

The bishop of San Bernardo, Juan Ignacio González, said that "we are not willing to do things that go against morality and the teaching of Christian and Catholic ethics" on Radio Cooperativa. "We are a public hospital that works with the Southern Health Service. We hope that it continues to be respected as it has always been, and I think it has to be stressed that this has been the case for many years and we have never been asked to do things that are contrary to our ideology, "he added.




As for private venues, the University Clinic of Los Andes, and reported that "as a private institution we will embrace the constitutional right of association, which ensures adequate autonomy to meet our purposes, according to our founding ideology," said La Tercera .

 Medical College

Although there are no official figures in the Medical College but they have done some internal surveys, of the three causes there is greater consensus in the cause of risk of life of the mother and the one that raises the most suspicion is that of rape, where the professionals who resist doing an abortion.

 In any case, the union estimates that 80% of the interventions will be with drugs and not in the pavilion, since they would be performed before 9 weeks of pregnancy.

However, there are certain fears within the body about the percentage of clinics and health facilities that refrain from delivering the benefit. In an interview with La Tercera, the union president, Izkia Siches, acknowledged that "it is worrying that there are many objectors or that they are distributed unevenly." We do not have the objective figures, but we suspect that there will be many institutions that will have a harder line. It worries that in the clinics or in regions there is no doctor that can perform the service and that this limits the law ".

He also denounced that the objection of conscience is being conditioned in some places. "We have information that there are institutions that are asking them in a targeted way: Is it true that everyone is going to be an objector? If there is a pressure, it is not with freedom the decision that they can take, that is why my call has been to protect In addition, it would seem very bad for me to renounce someone for being the objector of an institutional decision, if that information materializes, we would have to analyze it at the level of internal courts and social pressure, in addition to see other measures.

" Another of the fears of the union is "that a doctor is objector in the public and not in the private, that is, having benefits that have only lucrative purposes in the private, as a business, but in the public prevents access to the provision, that really needs a guide from our ethics departments and our courts.

" Another important issue to be defined are the closed plans for women and the access they really have to access in case they need to interrupt their pregnancy. Siches said in Radio Biobio that "it is necessary to clarify to women that they have closed plans - and eventually that there can not be closed plans for women as there can not be plans without a uterus nowadays - with institutions that say they are definitely conscientious objectors because in the end you can limit a right to these women tomorrow. "