25-Year-Old Polish Woman Dies Due to "Conscience Clause"

A young Polish woman died of septic shock in 2004 after being repeatedly refused a comprehensive examination, RH Reality Check reports. Her mother and fiancée begged for her to receive treatment that could save her life, but were still denied. Why? Because she was pregnant, and the doctors invoked their "conscience" as not allowing them to perform any medical procedure that might endanger the fetus.

In the end, the woman miscarried anyway, but her illness — complications from ulcerative colitis — was by then so advanced, she died within the month from inflammation throughout her body. Ironically, if she had been given exams and treatment to save her life, that might have kept her from miscarrying due to a worsening disease.

Now, the woman's mother is fighting to make sure that no other women will suffer the same fate as her daughter due to the so-called "consciences" of doctors who would sacrifice the health of a pregnant woman for that of her fetus.

Unable to find satisfaction in Polish courts, the mother has turned to the European Court of Human Rights. The lawsuit is seeking better regulation of doctors' right to deny medical care for religious/moral reasons, namely: enforcement of Polish law requiring doctors to issue referrals to someone who will perform the procedure, requiring the government to guarantee enough medical professionals who will perform any legal service, barring hospitals from invoking conscientious objection as an entire entity, and prohibiting doctors from using this conscience clause to deny medical information or emergency care.

The case is grounded on alleging violations of the European Convention on Human Rights, stating that "medical care that disregards the health of the pregnant woman in favor of that of her fetus violates the woman's rights to life, to freedom from inhumane and degrading treatment, and to non-discrimination."

Sorry if I fail to understand how anybody's "conscience" would push them to deny a young woman life-saving medical care. And given that the doctors' excuse for letting a woman die was to protect the fetus (which was lost anyway), it seems especially poignant that it is the woman's mother who wants to make sure this cannot happen again. After all, this 25-year-old woman was her child, a child she had to watch die unnecessarily.

In the United States, the "conscience clause" is usually discussed as something that lets hospitals, doctors, and nurses refuse to participate in abortion procedures, or lets pharmacists deny birth control to women, due to religious objections. In many ways, such conscience clauses are simply a backdoor attempt to limit reproductive rights, and women's rights advocates argue that medical professionals have a duty to provide for all legal medical needs. Nonetheless, conscience clauses are still viewed by many as solely restrictions on a woman's "choice," not a threat to her health or life, and thus, eh, not all that bad.

This Polish case demonstrates that, both in America and around the world, we must be especially careful that such calls to conscience do not again cause the death of a young woman unlucky to be simultaneously ill, pregnant, and in the care of doctors who didn't think her life was valuable enough to save.

Photo credit: NESRI