GDC/Colombia Clarifies “Conscience Objection”

GDC/Colombia shares its position on this recent publication, “The Fetus Is My Patient, Too: Attitudes Toward Abortion and Referral Among Physician Conscientious Objectors in Bogotá, Colombia” by Fink, L., Stanhope, K., Rochat, R., & Bernal, O. (2016).

While we agree that this line of research and findings are an important and valuable contribution in the search for strategies to address the multiple barriers to access legal abortion that Colombia women experience, it is essential to make conceptual clarifications and open this debate on the inadequate manner in which the term “conscientious objector” is attributed to professionals who are not from complying with the rules established by the Colombia Supreme Court, who are obstructing access to legal abortion, and thus who are systematically violating women’s rights.

Update: This GDC/Colombia response was published by the International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion.