Colm Fitzpatrick
Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan 
Colm Fitzpatrick and Greg Daly
Catholic hospitals need to resist performing abortions “at all costs” and medical professionals should have the right to oppose carrying them out, an Irish bishop has said.
Waterford’s and Lismore’s bishop, Alphonsus Cullinan said that many Irish people working in healthcare entered the profession to do good rather than harm, and that these professionals have the right to refuse to participate in a procedure or administer a treatment which, in their professional opinion, is unethical or simply not good medicine.
“Forcing the staff in a Catholic hospital to act against their ethos is not consistent with tolerance, openness and respect. And the Catholic institution should resist, at all costs, being forced to act against deeply held beliefs, Dr Cullinan told The Irish Catholic.
Legislation
The comments come in the wake of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s statements last week to the Dáil in which he said hospitals with a Catholic ethos will be required to perform abortions after new legislation comes into effect.
The bishop said that a Catholic hospital in an “open and tolerant society” should be respected and be allowed to uphold its ethos in full, adding that it is his sincere hope that the right to conscientious objection will be truly “cherished and respected”.
“Isn’t it strange that, on one side people who voted ‘Yes’, are being lauded for following their conscience and now we are trying to coerce people into doing something against their conscience? This is unjust,” he said.
Commenting on the Taoiseach’s statement, a spokesperson for the Dublin archdiocese said: “There is nothing new in Taoiseach’s statement. It is the law in Ireland since 2013. The Archbishop is unaware of any conflict situation in that time. Hospitals can only carry out procedures for which they are commissioned and have specific capacity.”
