“New Uses of Conscience-Based Claims Hinder Progress on Abortion Rights,” Kayla Zamanian and Andrés Constantin Write on OpenGlobalRights

Kayla Zamanian (SFS’23), medical humanities student, Science, Technology, and International Affairs (STIA) major with a Global Health concentration and French minor, co-authors piece about how conscientious objection has been increasingly used to hinder abortion rights on OpenGlobalRights. In this piece, Kayla Zamanian and Andrés Constantin describe that, although the decriminalization of abortion has boosted enthusiasm for what looks like the beginning of a new era for women’s rights in the Americas, “the accessibility and availability of abortion services remains in jeopardy due to the widespread use of conscience-based claims”. Although “conscientious objection should not constitute a barrier to sexual and reproductive health services”; “the invocation of conscience-based claims constitutes one of the most significant stumbling blocks to the realization of others’ fundamental right to health”. In other words, “making sexual and reproductive health services accessible in practice means the limits of invoking conscientious objection must be incisively interrogated”.