Ethical and juridical foundations of conscientious objection for health care workers

In front of the evolution of medicine and biotechnology, health care workers are called upon to take part within new biomedical practices, that may overcome the limit of acceptability, as it is perceived by their moral conscience. Issues as abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, artificial fertilisation, experimentation on human embryos and prescription of contraceptives and abortifacients call into play the right to conscientious objection of health care personnel, and in some cases, perhaps of physicians and pharmacists too. This recall--already present in many codes of professional conduct and medical ethics--sounds today as a necessity, which asks for a serious deepening of the content, the applicability and the new hypothesis of conscientious objection, in the light of bioethics and law. In particular, the self-determination and often exasperated autonomy of the patient within these practices makes a new principle of professional integrity arise, to protect the physician's conscientious convictions, if the request of the patient or society seem to violate some fundamental human values.