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SOUTH AFRICA: RESEARCH SURVEY NEEDED TO PASS CONSCIENCE CLAUSE

 There are no formal statistics as to the incidence of conscientious objection to abortion in South Africa. However, major health care trade unions and other groups estimate that 70-80% of all health professional in South Africa do not want to participate in abortion-on-demand on the grounds that this violates their consciences.

The South African Constitution protects every person’s right not to be discriminated against on the basis of his or her conscience, belief and opinion. Yet there is no statutory clause to protect these physicians and nurses from intimidation and discrimination if they try to practice this right.

For many years, Doctors for Life International (DFL) and other organizations have asked the South African Government to enact a clause that clarifies this right to health professionals. Recently a well known judge also expressed his dissatisfaction that nothing has been done in this regard, despite the fact that South Africa has been a democracy for more than 13 years! One of the reasons cited for not passing such a clause is that there is no proof that physicians and nurses have conscientious objection to abortion-on-demand.

To overcome this obstacle DFL would like to commission a scientific research survey to establish how many health professionals have such objections. DFL solicited quotes from reputable research institutions and found that the costs involved range from R48 564 to R208 620 (US$ 6 390 – US$ 27 450)

Once this research is done, several Members of Parliament have pledged to table a conscience clause. We believe this survey would be vital in persuading Parliament to pass such a clause.

We would like to request your financial assistance with meeting the cost of this survey. We hope that you will consider making this very important research possible as we believe it will benefit thousands of health care workers in SA.

DFL is a registered non-profit organization of more than 1500 physicians. DFL endeavors to support health professionals who have conscientious objection to abortion-on-demand. For this purpose DFL offer free legal advice 24/7 to physicians and nurses in this predicament. More details concerning the research survey can be obtained from Martus de Wet (martus@dfl.org.za). For more on DFL, please visit www.dfl.org.za