The right to health versus conscientious objection in Argentina

Abstract

The right to conscientious objection guarantees that individuals are not obliged to carry out actions that oppose their ethical or religious beliefs. In this article, we will analyze the arguments that mobilize the social players who appeal to that right in Argentina. We will compare two phenomena that limit the right and access to health and whose recurrence has increased since the early 2000s: the objection to the National Program of Responsible Sexual Health and Procreation and the National Plan of Compulsory Vaccination. The data analyzed come from three qualitative investigations, focused on the understanding of the views of the social players. We propose that conscientious objection cannot be reduced to a question of individual autonomy, but, on the contrary, it is a phenomenon in which individuals interact as parents, citizens, professionals, among other social roles.