Madam, - Your edition of January 5th reports that a legal panel appointed by the EU Commission "has attacked a draft treaty between Slovakia and the Vatican which would have restricted sensitive medical treatment such as abortions and IVF".
The panel is concerned at the possibility that a concordat between the Vatican and Slovakia "would allow healthcare workers in hospitals founded by the Catholic Church to refuse to perform abortions or carry out fertility treatment on conscience grounds" and suggests that this might conflict with Slovakia's obligations under EU law.
I wish to point out that, without any church-state agreement, the EU itself recognises the "right of churches and other public or private organisations, the ethos of which is based on religion or belief, acting in conformity with national constitutions and laws, to require individuals working for them to act in good faith and with loyalty to the organisation's ethos" (Directive 2000/78/EC, Art. 4). Even Britain, which has an extremely liberal position on abortion, legally recognises the right of healthcare workers to refuse to participate in abortion procedures on the grounds of conscience.
To describe abortion as a "medical treatment" is something of a misnomer because, while there are medical conditions associated with pregnancy, abortion is not actually a treatment for any condition. It simply circumvents the medical condition by destroying the life of the unborn.
There would appear to be certain elements at work in the EU Commission which value so-called "reproductive rights" more highly than either the right to life or the right to freedom of conscience. Irrespective of any position taken either by the EU Commission or by the national legislature, no hospital which considers itself to have a Catholic ethos can allow its facilities to be used for the destruction of human life.
It is also worth noting that, while the EU Commission might wish it were otherwise, the right of conscientious objection on the part of healthcare workers is not simply a quirk of Catholicism. It is underwritten in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The inclusion of abortion among the so-called "reproductive rights" is of much more recent and dubious vintage. - Yours, etc,
Fr KEVIN DORAN,
Glendalough,
Co Wicklow.