This website brings together views, news, and studies on the phenomenon of so-called “conscientious objection” in healthcare, in particular for abortion and other reproductive healthcare. We have renamed it to belief-based care denial to be more accurate, as the practice is not conscientious and the term is stigmatizing against abortion.
Spanish information on this topic:
News
Following are some news articles on the topic of “conscientious objection”.
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Women in Europe who miscarry can be left to die by “conscientious objectors” – who go unpunished
March 26, 2025 Italian appeal court acquitted four doctors for refusing to save Valentina Milluzzo’s life In October 2016, Valentina Milluzzo of Italy, 32, was miscarrying much-wanted twins at 19 weeks of pregnancy. But she died in the Cannizzaro Hospital…
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New UN Guidance Calling for Restraints on Conscientious Objection to Abortion Care
by Cynthia Soohoo and Jaime M. Gher The United Nations Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls (WGDAWG) this summer issued important new guidance on how governments can comply with their obligations to ensure that individual refusals to provide…
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ITALY – Appeal court acquits four doctors who refused to save the life of a woman who miscarried in their hospital
In Sicily, the Court of Appeal of Catania has just acquitted four doctors — Silvana Campione, Giuseppe Maria Alberto Calvo, Alessandra Coffaro, and Vincenzo Filippello — in the case of Valentina Milluzzo, 32 years old, who died from septic shock…
Victims of Belief-based Denial
Here is a collection of stories where women were refused a legal abortion and suffered serious injury or injustice as a result, including death in some cases. Doctors and hospitals are rarely punished or convicted for these wrongdoings.
Media coverage about serious consequences of the refusal to treat under CO usually only happens when a woman dies, or a woman or her family sues. Here are their stories we could find, but these must be the tip of the iceberg. We know nothing about the vast majority of refusals to treat under CO, or what happens to the victims.
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31 women (anonymous) – USA
Women’s health and lives are frequently put at risk in American Catholic hospitals, but only a few cases are publicized. We count at least 80 so far – 31 mostly anonymous cases are included here, with the rest described individually…
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Anna Nusslock (2024) – California
In February 2024, Anna Nusslock was 15 weeks pregnant when her water broke. When she went to her local hospital in Eureka California, she learned that the twins she and her husband had so desperately wanted were not viable. Further,…
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Mirela (2022) – Croatia
Four hospitals deny a woman a legal abortion because of serious fetal anomalies, forcing her to go to Slovenia. At a regular gynecological check-up in April, it was found that Mirela Čavajda’s fetus had a malignant brain tumor. She waited…
Our Publications
This page lists writings on the topic of “conscientious objection” by Joyce Arthur and/or Christian Fiala. Writings by other scholars who support the “incompatibility thesis” can be found in Publications by Others.
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(May 2025) Origin of “Conscientious Objection” in Health Care
How Care Denials Became Enshrined into Law Because of Abortion Abstract: The United Kingdom was the first country to legalize the refusal to provide health care in the name of “conscientious objection”, allowing doctors to refuse to provide abortions based…
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(Apr 2025) How to discourage belief-based denial of abortion care
by Christian Fiala & Joyce Arthur. Abstract: The exercise of so-called ‘conscientious objection’ in reproductive healthcare is unchecked and subject to widespread abuse. A growing body of evidence shows that the practice creates significant harms for patients needing abortions by delaying…
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(Nov 2024) Countries that Disallow Belief-based Care Denial
It has been claimed by various researchers or NGOs that certain countries do not allow belief-based care denial (aka “conscientious objection”) in reproductive healthcare or healthcare in general. This document examines those claims for each of the named countries. Only…