Freedom of conscience a fundamental right

SIR,

As Polonius was bidding farewell to his son Laertes in the great Shakespearian play Hamlet, he cautioned: This above all else to thine own self be true and it must follow, as does the night the day, you can not then be false to any person.

Most certainly there is no higher expectation that we can have of our medical personnel, doctors and nurses, than that they would be always true to their beliefs. It is only in that way that we can trust fully that they will do for us in our hour of need or distress that which is best.

Conscience is not Divine intervention, rather it is the practical and informed judgement of reason on an individual act as a good to be performed or as an evil to be avoided. The right to that freedom is at the very heart of daily decision making for every rational person and is so in a very special way for members of the medical professions in their treatment of patients.

If the Government and its Ministers seek to deprive doctors and nurses of the right to act in accordance with their consciences, we as a society are becoming a totalitarian dictatorship. In such a State human freedom to act ethically becomes subservient to ‘dictat from big brother’.

There are still many people alive who lived through the terrible era of 1930s and 1940s dictatorships, when human life ceased to be respected and when a stand for ethical behaviour cost human lives.

Minister Simon Harris, in his rush to introduce universal access to abortion up to at least 12 weeks gestation, should learn that the most fundamental of public rights is that of freedom of conscience.

Failure to respect that sacred right will have him numbered among those who disrespect democracy and the people whose rights he was elected to defend. Sincerely,

Michael Gleeson [Cllr], Clasheen,

Killarney