McGuinness, S and Thomson, M orcid.org/0000-0002-1570-2481 (2020) Conscience, abortion, and jurisdiction. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. gqaa034. ISSN 0143-6503
Abstract
Conscientious objection has achieved a particular place in contemporary law and culture. Lawyers, political theorists, ethicists, health professionals and others have debated how we best negotiate the tensions that can exist between professional obligations and private beliefs. Conscientious objection to abortion care has been a particular focus of these discussions. In this article, we draw on theoretical work on ‘jurisdiction’ to provide an account of what is embedded in claims to conscience and what the effects of such claims are. We focus specifically on refusals of abortion care enabled by section 4 of the Abortion Act 1967. We argue that legitimating narratives on conscience seek to achieve seemingly contradictory goals: entrenching abortion as morally ambiguous while securing it as part of medicine’s monopolistic practice. While section 4 provides the focus, our concerns extend to the wider landscape and impact of claims to conscience. Through our jurisdictional analysis, we seek to better understand such claims and dramatically reorient thinking by grounding the conscience clause squarely in the politics of ‘task areas’, professional domains, market control and claims of epistemological authority.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. This is an author produced version of an article published in Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Law (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 07 Jul 2020 15:19 |
Last Modified: | 05 Nov 2022 01:13 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/ojls/gqaa034 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:162898 |