Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill [HL]

Baroness Cox Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 26th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady O’Loan on introducing this Bill. The points I wish to make have already been made in far more eloquent contributions than mine will be, but I wish to put on record very briefly my reasons for strongly supporting this Bill. I should acknowledge my position as an honorary vice-president of the Royal College of Nursing.

As a former nurse, I feel very strongly about the issues under consideration. It seems that of all healthcare professionals who would be positively affected by the successful passage of this Bill, none would be more so than nurses and midwives as nurses are likely to be asked to assist in the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment and midwives are likely to be asked to assist with enabling abortion, the two more relatively common practices addressed by the Bill.

This is a matter not of imposing values or beliefs on patients but of asking for the right to conscientious objection where a human life is being taken, by asking the National Health Service to accommodate professionals who have religious or philosophical convictions which directly inform the conscientious performance of their role. Such beliefs are given protection under law from discrimination in conscience clauses recognised—indeed, originally called for—by professional bodies. I refer, for example, to the inclusion of the conscience clause in the Abortion Act. The Royal College of Nursing, the General Nursing Council, which today is the Nursing and Midwifery Council, and the Royal College of Midwives all called for a provision to help to protect the professionals they represented, and rightly so. It was this representation which informed the framing of the Act and which should inform our interpretation of it today.

As the Royal College of Nursing position statement on abortion states:

“We equally acknowledge and respect those nurses, midwives and health care assistants who have a conscientious objection within current legislation”.


This acknowledgement is important because it reflects the understanding that conscientious belief is not just a personal idiosyncrasy but an essential element of what it is to be a human being and, most importantly in this context, a human being providing healthcare and medical treatment. That is why such belief is protected under equality legislation, and why we have taken pains in previous law to accommodate the conscience of medical professionals. Unfortunately, as has been highlighted by others, recent legal judgments have demonstrated a degradation of conscience protections in law. Correcting this situation, as the Bill would do, thereby allowing freedom of conscience for healthcare workers, ensuring their freedom from unjust discrimination and respecting diversity of belief, would be a very significant and much-needed achievement.

For the sake of those serving in the medical, nursing and midwifery professions, for the sake of the patients they serve and for the sake of the integrity of healthcare professions, I believe ensuring that conscientious objection is given proper protection in law would be a truly important reform, which this Bill seeks to do. That is why I give it my strongest support.