Religion and health care

Health is quite often an ideological battlefield, in particular on matters concerning human sexuality and reproduction and the end of life. Quite a wide range of religious doctrines and philosophical conceptions co-exist in modern European society about human nature, gender roles, the right of citizens to decide on their sexuality, their reproductive life and on the end of their life. The role of public policy is not to decide which of these plural conceptions is right or wrong, but to ensure that the individual rights of all citizens are respected and create the conditions for each to live according to their religious and philosophical conceptions, in respect of the others. Mechanisms need to be developed to solve situations where the rights of one citizen are in conflict with the rights of another one.

To shape public policy in the field of health political decision makers need to take into account the plurality of positions existing in society. They need to analyse if a specific group’s position really corresponds to the position of the constituency the group claims to represent, if the facts presented are accurate and valid, if they respect the positions of others and serve the common good and if the policies recommended really work.

Control over the individual’s behaviour concerning health and in particular in the field of human sexuality and reproduction as well as on the end of life has been a very strong means for exerting political power over women and men and all forms of fundamentalism fear nothing more than any changes that might occur in these fields. This is why secularism has developed and grown in a society to the extent wher its members have begun to free themselves from this control by religious authorities and claimed to have the right to decide according to their own criteria.

This section will be devoted to sharing information about legislative initiatives in the field of health, and more specifically of sexual and reproductive health and of the end of life, and the controversies and debates these projects induce.