Health vs. Conscience Clause: Examining Access to Contraceptives and the Observance of Women’s Reproductive Rights in Poland

Abstract

This paper advocates for educating the moral competence in the health and pharmacy professions to enable them to respect reproductive and sexual health as core public values and human rights. In certain cultures, doctors and pharmacists follow their conscientious objection (religious conscience clause) and decline to perform certain health services, including the provision of legal contraceptives in cases protected by legal and human rights. This may violate patients and purchasers rights. The paper also presents new findings obtained in Poland with N=121 women experimentally interviewed to examine their experiences as contraception purchasers, to assess their preference with regard to facing human vs. robotic pharmacist, to manage to manage the risk of refusal argued by the conscientious objection, and to score their moral competence with one of dilemmas included in the Moral Competence Test by G. Lind. It concludes that public values in reproductive health contexts must be better balanced and managed by democratic procedures and institutions.</br></br> Key Words: conscience clause, reproductive and sexual human rights, women s rights, value and principle plurality, moral competence, contraception, Moral Competence Test, thought experiment