ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 8, 2023 / 15:30 pm
The medical profession in Mexico is defending its right to conscientious objection after the federal Chamber of Deputies (lower house) passed a bill that changes the country’s General Law on Health to make it conform with a Supreme Court ruling restricting that right.
The legislation was approved in general by the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies on Oct. 31 by a vote of 304-101, with 13 abstentions. After its passage, it was sent for review and debate in the country’s Senate.
The bill was passed to adhere to the ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) — the highest judicial body in Mexico with the powers of a constitutional court — which in September 2021 declared invalid Article 10 Subsection 1 of the General Law on Health, which regulates conscientious objection by health personnel in Mexico.
At a Nov. 5 press conference, Dr. Luis Francisco Molina Jai, president of the Mexican College of General Medicine, on behalf of 60 federations, associations, and medical colleges in Mexico condemned the “criminalization” of the exercise of the right to conscientious objection that the bill establishes.