Pro-life Lobby Soundly Defeats EU Attack on Conscience in Dramatic Reversal

By Hilary White
ROME, October 7, 2010

(LifeSiteNews.com) – An attempt to erase the conscience rights of EU health care workers has been soundly defeated at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) this evening. In a vote of 56 to 51, the PACE rejected the proposal of Christine McCafferty, a British politician and abortion activist, to “regulate” conscientious objectors to abortion across Europe.

The McCafferty Report, titled “Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection,” had been identified by pro-life advocates as the latest in a string of EU and PACE efforts to establish abortion as a universal human right.

As of tonight, Resolution 1763, re-titled “The right to conscientious objection in lawful medical care,” instead of creating a requirement for doctors to participate in abortion, actually affirms their right to refuse. The provisional edition published tonight reads, “No person, 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, the performance of a human miscarriage, or euthanasia or any act which could cause the death of a human foetus or embryo, for any reason.”

Irish senator Ronan Mullen and Luca Volonte of Italy, led the assembly in passing a series of amendments which totally reversed the thrust of the report. The changes forced McCafferty and other pro-abortion Assembly members to vote against their own proposal. the rest