This website brings together views, news, and studies on the phenomenon of so-called “conscientious objection” (“CO”) 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.

Belief-based care denial is the refusal by healthcare professionals to provide a legal, patient-requested medical service or treatment for which they would normally be responsible, based on their objection to the treatment for personal or religious reasons. (It is the opposite of conscientious commitment.)

Materials on this website support the “incompatibility thesis”, i.e., that the refusal to treat patients for personal reasons is incompatible with the obligation to provide healthcare.

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This website is operated by the Initiative for Reproductive Health Information (IRHI) and is a collaboration between Dr. Christian Fiala of Gynmed Clinic in Austria, and Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.

Victims of Belief-based Denial is a key feature of the website. Here we describe dozens of stories of women who suffered serious injustice or injury, including death, because doctors exercised their “conscience” and denied them abortions.

Our Publications provides summaries and links to the many published articles and letters we have written on the topic.

Publications by Others provide summaries and links to articles by other researchers who generally share our views on the unacceptability of the refusal to treat in healthcare.

About This Topic includes excerpts from our first major article on the topic: “Dishonourable disobedience” — Why refusal to treat in reproductive healthcare is not conscientious objection. Woman – Psychosom Gynaecol Obstet (2014).