Upholding the right to conscientious objection in medical care in Italy: an increasingly pressing issue

Various international treaties, as well as the European Court of Human Rights, guarantee the exercise of one’s freedom of conscience. Yet the Italian scenario shows how the doctor’s right to conscience may be at risk. Law n. 219/2017 does not acknowledge the medical right to conscience in cases where patients should decide to withhold or withdraw life-saving treatments through advance health care directives (which may have been laid out, and subscribed to, years before). Consequently, it appears necessary to outline the following rules: a) to recognize in general terms the ability of doctors to refrain from carrying out treatments that conflict with his or her conscience; b) if the doctor does refuse to act on that basis, the health care facilities should refer the patient to another professional willing to perform the procedure, provided that the patient is entitled to it; c) health care facilities should be enabled to turn to the courts in order to establish whether the exercise of conscientious objection, on the part of the doctor, was illegitimate and, if that is the case, resort to punitive measures against him or her.