Medical Conscientious Objection in Latin America 30 Years After Cairo

Fil: Ramón Michel, Agustina. CEDES. Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad. Buenos Aires; Argentina

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ramón Michel, Agustina, Repka, Dana
Formato: Artículo
Lenguaje:en_US
Publicado: 2025
Materias:
Objeción de Conciencia
America Latina
SALUD SEXUAL Y REPRODUCTIVA
ABORTO LEGAL
Argentina
Acceso en línea:http://repositorio.cedes.org/handle/123456789/4811
Aporte de:
Respositorio Digital CRIS del CEDES - Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad de Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad (CEDES)
id I61-R167-123456789-4811
record_format dspace
spelling I61-R167-123456789-48112025-09-06T04:30:59Z Medical Conscientious Objection in Latin America 30 Years After Cairo Ramón Michel, Agustina Repka, Dana Objeción de Conciencia America Latina SALUD SEXUAL Y REPRODUCTIVA ABORTO LEGAL Argentina Fil: Ramón Michel, Agustina. CEDES. Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad. Buenos Aires; Argentina The 2018 and 2020 debates on abortion legislation in Argentina, the decriminalization rulings by the Mexican Supreme Court, the resistance from physicians in Peru, and Chile’s unsuccessful attempt at constitutional reform share a common element: the centrality of conscience clauses. These provisions enable healthcare personnel to invoke conscientious objection (CO), allowing them to refuse participation in medical procedures that conflict with their moral or religious beliefs. This phenomenon gained attention following the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), marking a significant global shift from population control towards a rights-based approach to reproductive health and rights. As this framework became more established, the role of CO in healthcare began to change. It became a way out not only for those with religious convictions but also for health professionals concerned about the stigma surrounding sexual and reproductive health services, particularly abortion. In other words, it turned into a means to navigate new professional obligations, and even a strategy to cope with excessive workloads. However, its most problematic use arises when it becomes a political tool, as conservative groups started to invoke CO as a form of resistance to new sexual and reproductive rights laws and as a symbol of ideological cohesion. As a result of its increasingly broad and strategic use, CO has ultimately limited timely access to quality sexual and reproductive health services for women, trans people, and adolescents. This has led to systemic disruptions in healthcare provision, directly undermining the ICPD’s commitment to ensuring universal access to reproductive healthcare. This article focuses on abortion, where most CO regulations and legal disputes have surfaced. We examine conscience clauses of Latin America and their impact on healthcare provision, identifying trends and regulatory innovations that go beyond simply transplantation European or North American models. Among these innovations, we highlight the incorporation of institutional safeguards within conscience clauses in some Latin American countries as a novel strategy to mitigate the negative effects of expanded and misused CO. At the same time, however, we also observe that several courts and legislatures in the region have recognized the right to institutional conscientious objection (ICO), a development that has further exacerbated the harmful consequences of CO by allowing entire healthcare institutions to refuse services that conflict with their mission or identity. We argue that the expansion of CO clauses, along with the increasing diversity and impact of their applications, not only calls for new regulatory responses, some of which are already emerging in the region, but also demands an empirically informed reconceptualization. Such a reconceptualization must move beyond the classical definitions of CO inherited from the context of compulsory military service in order to fully grasp the current nature of this phenomenon. 2025-09-05T18:28:31Z 2025-09-05T18:28:31Z 2025-08-30 Artículo http://repositorio.cedes.org/handle/123456789/4811 10.1007/s12116-025-09479-x en_US St Comp Int Dev;2025
institution Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad (CEDES)
institution_str I-61
repository_str R-167
collection Respositorio Digital CRIS del CEDES - Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad
language en_US
topic Objeción de Conciencia
America Latina
SALUD SEXUAL Y REPRODUCTIVA
ABORTO LEGAL
Argentina
spellingShingle Objeción de Conciencia
America Latina
SALUD SEXUAL Y REPRODUCTIVA
ABORTO LEGAL
Argentina
Ramón Michel, Agustina
Repka, Dana
Medical Conscientious Objection in Latin America 30 Years After Cairo
topic_facet Objeción de Conciencia
America Latina
SALUD SEXUAL Y REPRODUCTIVA
ABORTO LEGAL
Argentina
description Fil: Ramón Michel, Agustina. CEDES. Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad. Buenos Aires; Argentina
format Artículo
author Ramón Michel, Agustina
Repka, Dana
author_facet Ramón Michel, Agustina
Repka, Dana
author_sort Ramón Michel, Agustina
title Medical Conscientious Objection in Latin America 30 Years After Cairo
title_short Medical Conscientious Objection in Latin America 30 Years After Cairo
title_full Medical Conscientious Objection in Latin America 30 Years After Cairo
title_fullStr Medical Conscientious Objection in Latin America 30 Years After Cairo
title_full_unstemmed Medical Conscientious Objection in Latin America 30 Years After Cairo
title_sort medical conscientious objection in latin america 30 years after cairo
publishDate 2025
url http://repositorio.cedes.org/handle/123456789/4811
work_keys_str_mv AT ramonmichelagustina medicalconscientiousobjectioninlatinamerica30yearsaftercairo
AT repkadana medicalconscientiousobjectioninlatinamerica30yearsaftercairo
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