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Asunción de la Iglesia, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Navarra, Spain

Objection versus totalitarianism

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:01:13 +0000 Published in La Razón

One difference between a Constitutional State and a totalitarian one is the respect for social pluralism and ideological and religious freedom. The article 16 of our constitutional text protects, after physical life (article 15 CE), the moral, spiritual and intellectual life of individuals and communities, thus following the international texts in subject of human rights. It should be recalled that the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU expressly mentions conscientious objection in its article 10.2. This, in its most typical manifestation, is a right of individual self-determination that consists of exempting subjects from compliance with the obligations imposed by the legislator when they seriously and irresolvably clash with the set of beliefs and convictions objectifiable, intimate and rooted in the person and in groups, and this without negative consequences. When it is not provided for in the law, objection is a potential right that arises directly from the Constitution and that, in the final analysis, must be protected by the courts, weighing the assets at stake. Therefore, to curtail objection to the point of nullifying it is to make freedom impossible. In matters as serious as abortion or the dispensation of abortifacients, to admit that the legislator can force participation by direct or indirect acts is to attack the moral dimension of the subjects. It is a violation of such gravity that it slides us without brakes down a slope that leads to a totalitarian State that we thought we had overcome.