Dear friends, The Council of Europe will vote on a report called “Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection” on October 7th. We are extremely concerned: this report would constitute a major difficulty for Christians and faith-based hospitals. We therefore ask you to write a short email to your representatives at the Council of Europe. In the following you find all necessary information, as well as names, contact details and links. Thank you for your efforts – and for your daily prayer for a Christian Europe! Your Europe for Christ – Team in Vienna
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The main problems: The report focuses “especially on the field of reproductive health care” for women, i.e., mainly on abortion, but it also concerns some other practices such as assisted reproduction and sterilization. The report also mentions “pain-relief by life-shortening means for terminally ill patients” i.e., active euthanasia. Among its more unacceptable provisions, this Council of Europe document asks the European Member States: - to “oblige the healthcare provider to provide the desired treatment to which the patient is legally entitled [i.e. abortion] despite his or her conscientious objection”, - to oblige the healthcare provider to take part indirectly, in all circumstances, in abortion and other critical medical practices despite his or her conscientious objection, - to oblige the healthcare provider to prove “that his or her objection is grounded in their conscience or religious beliefs and that the refusal is done in good faith”, - to deprive “public/state institutions, such as public hospitals and clinics, as a whole”, from the “guarantee of the right to conscientious objection”, - to create a “registry of conscientious objectors”, - to create “an effective complaint mechanism” against the conscientious objectors. (*) Full text of the report: assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc10/EDOC12347.pdf The members of the parliamentary assembly by countries: assembly.coe.int/ASP/AssemblyList/AL_DelegationsList_E.asp Please write also to: - President of Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Mr. Mevlut Cavusoglu (Turkey): cavusoglu@tbmm.gov.tr - Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Mr. Mateo Sorinas (Spanien): pace.com@coe.int and flemming.kjerschow@coe.int - President of the Social Affairs Commitee, Mrs. Liliane Maury Pasquier (Schweiz, Sozialisten) liliane.maurypasquier@parl.ch For further details and arguments click here... (*) We thank the European Centre for Law and Justice (www.eclj.org) for its outstanding work on compiling arguments and overviews on this issue.
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