Court fails to uphold parents’ right to protect their child from gender “transition”, demanding they hand over documents for her legal “sex change”.
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Nancy Pearcey is a prominent author and Christian apologist who dedicates her scholarship to the intersection of faith and culture. Pearcey explores how Christianity must be lived as a worldview that touches on every area of life.
Pearcey offers a steadfast and courageous witness for today’s Christians, advocating for a conception of the human person as an integrated being, body, and soul, who should be valued accordingly. Our Sophia Kuby sat down with Pearcey to explore how this understanding should inform the Christian response to the issues of our day.
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Q: Arguably, your book Love Thy Body is more relevant today than even when you wrote it in 2018. You identify the dualistic, fragmented view of the person as the key to understanding where we are headed as a society. Why is that?
A: This dualism, this split, may be the most important key to understanding what happens in our culture today. We tend to treat euthanasia, abortion, transgenderism, the hookup culture etc., as individual issues. But if we can recognize the underlying worldview, it will be so much easier to respond because we’re digging deeper as to what’s really driving the secular culture on these issues.
What’s under the surface translates into a split about the human person such as body and mind or values and facts, science and morals, all of these splits. Once you understand that, there really is no surprise anymore, no matter how radical it gets.
Once you split the body from your mind and your identity you have something entirely disincarnated. And the body has no significance. Like everything makes sense in a way. It’s not right, but Christians need to understand this worldview because that way you are not surprised by secular conclusions.
Q: You explain how [dualism] it’s the same secular worldview that drives euthanasia. How so?
A: For proponents of euthanasia, if you are mentally disabled, if you no longer have a certain level of cortical functioning, then you are no longer a person, even though you’re obviously still human. And at that point, in this view, you’re not a person anymore. You’re only a body.
And so, you can be unplugged—your treatment withheld, your food and water discontinued, and your organs harvested. So, once again, you see how being human is no longer enough for human rights. You have to achieve a certain level of awareness or cognitive ability in order to earn the status of personhood. And anyone who falls short is considered a non-person. So, we are seeing the emergence of a new category now which is the human non-person.
On the other hand, the pro-life view is inclusive. If you are a member of the human race, you’re in, you count. You have the full rights as a member of the moral community.
What’s under the surface translates into a split about the human person such as body and mind or values and facts, science and morals, all of these splits. Once you understand that, there really is no surprise anymore, no matter how radical it gets.
Once you split the body from your mind and your identity you have something entirely disincarnated. And the body has no significance. Like everything makes sense in a way. It’s not right, but Christians need to understand this worldview because that way you are not surprised by secular conclusions.
Q: There is a worldview thread connecting abortion and euthanasia to questions of sexuality. Can you explain?
A: The connecting thread is the division of the body from the person. We see this in the hookup culture. The entire premise is that sex can be purely physical, cut off from the whole person.
The mistake people make is to assume that there are two very distinct elements in a relationship: one emotional and one sexual, and they pretend like there are clean lines between them. There is a fundamental despair stemming from the belief that the body doesn’t mean anything. [It’s] no wonder the hookup culture is leaving behind a trail of wounded people.
People are trying to live out a secular ethic that does not fit who they really are. The Christian ethic is incarnational. And science is on our side. Science has shown the interconnection of body and person, for example, with the discovery of hormones like oxytocin. We are designed to bond. And Scripture teaches that we are embodied spirits. Both body and spirit are part of our identity.
And so, you can be unplugged—your treatment withheld, your food and water discontinued, and your organs harvested. So, once again, you see how being human is no longer enough for human rights. You have to achieve a certain level of awareness or cognitive ability in order to earn the status of personhood. And anyone who falls short is considered a non-person. So, we are seeing the emergence of a new category now which is the human non-person.
On the other hand, the pro-life view is inclusive. If you are a member of the human race, you’re in, you count. You have the full rights as a member of the moral community.
What’s under the surface translates into a split about the human person such as body and mind or values and facts, science and morals, all of these splits. Once you understand that, there really is no surprise anymore, no matter how radical it gets.
Once you split the body from your mind and your identity you have something entirely disincarnated. And the body has no significance. Like everything makes sense in a way. It’s not right, but Christians need to understand this worldview because that way you are not surprised by secular conclusions.
Q: How do you respond to those who hold the view that you can be born into the wrong body?
A: What we need to realize is that it is a profoundly disrespectful view of the body to pit the mind against the body and then say it’s only the mind and feelings that count.
Would God create people to be torn in two conflicting directions like this? Not the Christian God. Things like conflict, self-division, and self-alienation are results of the fall, not creation. And yet today, it’s widely accepted that if somebody feels that sense of inner division, a conflict between the body and the mind, then it is your feelings and desires that count.
The Christian ethic is holistic. The mind and emotions are meant to be in tune with our body. And so, it’s an ethic that overcomes self-division and self-alienation, and ultimately leads to a sense of internal unity, wholeness, and self-integration.
Q: So how does this apply to the worldview driving the transgender movement?
A: This involves the same split view of the person, the same devaluing of the body. Transgender activists argue explicitly that your gender identity has nothing to do with your physical body, with your biological sex.
I watched a BBC documentary that said that at the heart of the debate is the idea that your mind can be at war with your body, and it is the mind that wins. So, in this view, your body has been reduced to a meat skeleton. I recently came across a Kickstarter page for a documentary titled “I Am Not My Body.” That title says it all. My body is not part of my authentic self.
This is a radically separate, divided, fractured, fragmented view of what a person is. That’s the core of what’s being taught to young people all the way down to kindergarten—that your body has no meaning at all.
Q: How should Christians respond to this extreme devaluation of the body?
A: Even secular people are saying that transgenderism involves body hatred. So what this means is that Christians have a wonderful opportunity to show that a Biblical ethic expresses a positive view of the way God made us as physically embodied beings, that the biological correspondence between male and female is not some evolutionary accident. It’s part of the original creation that God pronounced very good.
There is a turning point for people who identify as transgender when they can say: “I finally came to trust that God had made me my sex for a reason, and I wanted to honor my body by living in accord with the Creator’s design.” This is a beautiful language. This is not guilt, shame, and self-loathing. This is positive: I want to honor my body.
So, number one, we must learn how to use positive language. “Live in tune with your body. Live in harmony with the Creator’s design.” Let’s face it, Christians are known for having a negative message. We have to start with a positive message that our body is God’s creation, and that a Biblical ethic shows us how to honor and respect it.
Next, we have to be proactive. I’ve told Brandon’s story. Brandon was sort of the classic case before he was even walking. His babysitter told his mother, “He’s too good to be a boy,” by which she meant he was gentle and sweet-natured. By elementary school, he was coming to his parents weeping, saying: “I don’t fit in anywhere,” because he didn’t feel like a boy.
By his early teens, he was scouring the internet for information on sex reassignment surgery. So, what did his parents do? They made sure he knew they loved him just the way he was. They did not try to change him.
They said it is perfectly acceptable to be a gentle, sensitive boy. It does not mean you are really a girl. His parents said it may mean that God has gifted you for one of the caring professions like counselor or healthcare worker. His parents’ favorite line, which they said over and over again, was: “It’s not you that’s wrong. It’s the stereotypes that are wrong.”
Brandon did not transition. He did finally accept that it is scientifically impossible to actually change your sex.
Q: As we assess the toll that these ideologies are taking across the world, is there hope? What does the future hold?
There is good news. First, there are an increasing number of people who are “de-transitioning.” People who have gone through this are turning around and accusing the clinics of fast-tracking them. Some are bringing the clinics to court.
There are a couple of cases working their way through the courts in the US, and some states are banning medical interventions for minors. European countries are changing their policy. They are pulling back in England, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, France, Wales, Scotland, Germany, and the Netherlands.
We must continue to assert the revolutionary nature of Christianity, which teaches that the material world is made by the supreme deity, who is a good God, and therefore it is intrinsically good. Yes, the world is fallen, but the fall is like a beautiful masterpiece that a child takes a magic marker and scribbles on.
Yes, it’s defaced, but the original beauty still shines through. And that’s what we need to help people see—that the world still shows the original beauty of God’s creation. The Incarnation is the ultimate affirmation of the dignity of the human body. And what’s more, when Jesus was executed on a Roman cross, he did escape the physical world, as Gnosticism teaches we should aspire to do. But what did he do then? He came back in a physical body—a bodily resurrection.
God is not going to scrap the material world as if He made a mistake the first time around.
He’s going to restore it. The resurrection of the body, as affirmed in the Apostles Creed, is an astonishingly high view of the physical world. There’s nothing like it in any other religion or philosophy.
Authorities in Türkiye ignored several requests from the Diyarbakir Protestant Church Foundation to use new land for a worship center; Foundation then brought legal challenge, which was struck down by court.
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GENEVA (12 July 2024) – Elon Musk has weighed in after a teenage girl was separated from her parents by Swiss authorities, because her parents refused her puberty blockers. The girl has been housed in a government shelter for over a year.
“This is insane,” commented the owner of “X” and Tesla CEO, adding, “This suicidal mind virus is spreading throughout Western Civilization”.
The case, currently unfolding in Swiss courts, centres on parents who responded to the mental health struggles of their daughter, who expressed “gender confusion,” with care and support, including obtaining mental health care.
Concerned that their daughter was being pushed to make hasty and potentially irreversible decisions, they declined “puberty blockers” and explicitly rejected her school’s attempt to “socially transition” her. The school disregarded the parents’ explicit instruction.
The school and the state child welfare agency, Service de Protection des Mineurs (SPMI), then brought a case against them in court.
“And that has meant for us many sleepless nights, a lot of deep pain, and a sense of hopelessness,” the father said.
“This is insane - This suicidal mind virus is spreading throughout Western Civilization"
For seeking to protect the health and wellbeing of their daughter, they now face a legal stand-off over their fundamental rights as parents to care for their child who, residing in a government shelter, is being encouraged to pursue dangerous medical interventions to “transition.”
Also commenting on the case, parental rights campaigner Billboard Chris said: “No child has ever been born in the “wrong body”. As parents, we have the duty to guide and protect our children as they navigate puberty – steering them away from harmful ideologies, and empowering them to feel confident in their own skin.”
Billboard Chris also asked: “Where are the Swiss politicians condemning this child abuse and violation of parents’ rights?”
“Their child has been taken away simply for trying to protect her from harm.”
Dr. Felix Boellmann, lead lawyer on the case for ADF International, said: “Children who experience discomfort with their biological sex deserve to be treated with dignity and need compassionate mental health care, which these parents have gone to great lengths to provide.
“As a result, they are now living every parent’s worst nightmare. Their child has been taken away from them simply for trying to protect her from harm.
Amy Gallagher, the mental health nurse who is suing the UK Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, said: “This case is terrifying. These parents have had their child taken from them by a State that is captured by gender ideology. I trust in faith and hope that the parents, with support from ADF International, will convince the legal authorities in Switzerland that this is not the path to take and the child is united with her parents swiftly. The Swiss authorities should take in to account the outcomes of the Cass Report and the increasing view that affirmation of transgenderism is dangerous.”
Kellie-Jay Keen: “global push to destroy families and access our children.”
Women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen sees “a global push to destroy families and access our children. The erasure of female language, particularly around motherhood is part of this. Mothers are the protectors of children, fathers are the protectors of families. The state does not know or love our children better than parents.
“Similar stories of state kidnap of children who have parents who recognise the harm of the quasi-religious authoritarian cult of trans have been reported in Canada, USA, Australia and I suspect many have gone unreported elsewhere.
“I have been raising the alarm for some time about this overreach. One must ask who is pushing this and why they might be doing it. Nothing I’ve come up with is anything other than malevolent.
“Parents must not sleepwalk into surrendering our most important duty, protecting our children. Trust your instincts and talk to your children.
“In the UK, many schools refuse to use “son”, “daughter”, “child” or “children”, and prefer to use “your young person”. We must fight this creep of erasing both the relation to our children and the fact they’re children.”
More reactions, quotes and full background can be found here. To support the case and the parents click here.
The Inter-American Court on Human Rights grants provisional measures to 11 pastors, ministry leaders with Puerta de la Montaña, calling for their immediate release, restored contact with legal counsel, families.
Continue readingParents ordered by court to hand over legal documents to allow their daughter to “transition,” appeal is pending
Backed by ADF International, parents seek reinstatement of their parental rights and to reunite with daughter, now 16, living in a government shelter since April 2023
Members of the public are invited to support the parents’ legal defence here
GENEVA (11 July 2024) – The teenage daughter of parents residing in Geneva, Switzerland, has been separated from her family for over a year after her parents objected to her gender “transition.”
The case, currently unfolding in Swiss courts, centres on parents who responded to the mental health struggles of their daughter, who expressed “gender confusion,” with care and support, including obtaining mental health care for her.
Concerned that their daughter was being pushed to make hasty and potentially irreversible decisions, they declined “puberty blockers” and explicitly rejected her school’s attempt to “socially transition” her. The school disregarded the parents’ explicit demand.
For seeking to protect the health and wellbeing of their daughter, they now face a legal stand-off over their fundamental rights as parents to care for their child who, residing in a government shelter, is being encouraged to pursue dangerous medical interventions to “transition.”
For safety reasons and to protect their children, the parents are speaking anonymously.
“The story is truly a nightmare. Swiss authorities have taken our child, our daughter, who’s 16 years old."
“My daughter now lives in a government home. Our access to her is regulated by the government.”
The parents added: “I can’t believe we live in a society where your child can be taken away from you simply for trying to protect her.”
“We want our daughter back home. We love her and we miss her,” the girl’s mother pleaded.
Dr. Felix Boellmann, lead lawyer on the case for ADF International said: “Children who experience discomfort with their biological sex deserve to be treated with dignity and need compassionate mental health care, which these parents have gone to great lengths to provide.
“These parents are living every parent’s worst nightmare. Their child has been taken away from them simply for trying to protect her from harm.
“The implications of this are devastating not only for them as a family, but also for all of society. No society can claim to be free if parents can lose their daughter solely for affirming biological reality.”
Parents plea for reunification and reinstatement of their rights
The parents said: “As parents, we would do anything to protect our children from harm. We want the best for our kids.”
“We love them and want to raise them to be honest, kind, and self-confident adults—both our daughter and our son, each in their own way.”
“But right now, our daughter is still a minor, and she rightfully belongs in our home where we can help her navigate through life’s struggles in a way that is best for her long-term health and happiness.”
Commenting on the case, parental rights campaigner Billboard Chris said: “No child has ever been born in the “wrong body”. As parents, we have the duty to guide and protect our children as they navigate puberty – steering them away from harmful ideologies, and empowering them to feel confident in their own skin.
“This chilling case exposes the troubling grip of Western authorities: trampling over the health and wellbeing of a child for the sake of an ideology, and remaining severely out of touch with the leading science – including the evidence brought forward by the recent Cass Report about the harmful impact of puberty blockers on young females. The world should pay attention: the right outcome here is significant in the fight to protect kids everywhere.”
Background and the ideological “gender unicorn”
In 2021, following other mental health concerns, the then 13-year-old told her parents that she felt her “gender identity” was male. This happened following the Covid pandemic, when she had spent a significant amount of time alone in her room and online.
The parents took their daughter to a hospital for help. After a quick 30-minute meeting with doctors, in which she was shown the ideological “gender unicorn” diagram, the doctors said their daughter may be experiencing “gender dysphoria”.
The “gender unicorn” is a controversial diagram based on the false premise that a person’s gender can change and that their gender is based on their feelings and will rather than biological reality.
The doctors told the parents their daughter should take puberty blockers, which the parents declined. They instead chose to obtain private mental health care for her.
“The story is truly a nightmare.”
During this period, the school, against the explicit wishes of the parents, began to “socially transition” the daughter. “Social transition,” as has been shown in the Cass Review, paves the way for irreversible physical interventions, such as the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical mutilation.
The parents shared with the school peer-reviewed medical and scientific literature raising serious concerns about “social transitioning.” They also shared revised government policies from the increasing number of European countries that are moving away from “gender affirmative treatment” due to growing evidence of its harms.
Following the parents’ objections to their daughter’s “transition,” the school liaised with the state child welfare agency, Service de Protection des Mineurs (SPMI).
They convened a meeting with the parents in which the parents were accused of abuse for seeking alternative care for their daughter. The child welfare agency would later tell the parents to “just accept that you have a son.”
The daughter was separated from her parents in April 2023 following a court order placing her in a government-funded youth shelter.
Legal challenge backed by ADF International
The parents are appealing a court order, issued 28 February 2024, to hand over documents, which would allow their daughter to apply for a change of the “legal sex” in the civil register. The demand for the documentation followed the parents’ failed appeal to recover legal authority over the appointment of their daughter’s medical professionals, which had been granted to the child welfare agency by the court.
“Not only have these parents committed no wrong, they absolutely must have their child returned home and are under no obligation to consent to the authority’s demands to allow dangerous medical interventions."
The parents are currently awaiting a decision on their appeal on the matter of the documents.
The parents seek to stop their daughter from “legally transitioning.” This would pave the way for irreversible medical interventions, such as the use of cross-sex hormones and body mutilating surgery, which would have grave consequences for her health and well-being.
Amy Gallagher, the mental health nurse who is suing the UK Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, said:
“This case is terrifying. These parents have had their child taken from them by a State that is captured by gender ideology. I trust in faith and hope that the parents, with support from ADF International, will convince the legal authorities in Switzerland that this is not the path to take and the child is united with her parents swiftly. The Swiss authorities should take in to account the outcomes of the Cass Report and the increasing view that affirmation of transgenderism is dangerous. Hopefully Europe will follow NHS England in asserting the important of an evidence-base for treating children experiencing distress in relation to their biological sex.”
Switzerland in violation of international
Women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen sees “a global push to destroy families and access our children. The erasure of female language, particularly around motherhood is part of this. Mothers are the protectors of children, fathers are the protectors of families. The state does not know or love our children better than parents.
“Similar stories of state kidnap of children who have parents who recognise the harm of the quasi-religious authoritarian cult of trans have been reported in Canada, USA, Australia and I suspect many have gone unreported elsewhere.
“I have been raising the alarm for some time about this overreach. One must ask who is pushing this and why they might be doing it. Nothing I’ve come up with is anything other than malevolent.
“Parents must not sleepwalk into surrendering our most important duty, protecting our children. Trust your instincts and talk to your children.
“In the UK, many schools refuse to use “son”, “daughter”, “child” or “children”, and prefer to use “your young person”. We must fight this creep of erasing both the relation to our children and the fact they’re children.”
International law holds that a child shall not be separated from her parents against their will, except in cases of abuse.
Dr Boellmann states: “Swiss authorities are in clear violation of international and national law in separating this girl from her parents.
“Not only have these parents committed no wrong, they absolutely must have their child returned home and are under no obligation to consent to the authority’s demands to allow dangerous medical interventions.
“Further, they have the right and the duty to protect their daughter from the harms of this ideology.
“Switzerland must act now to restore this child to her parents and address the egregious overstepping on the part of the school, hospital, and child welfare agency that allowed this nightmare scenario to unfold.”
Steven Edginton, a GB News journalist who has reported on progressive ideology in the UK civil service, including transgender ideology, said:
“It is outrageous that the Swiss government has separated a child and their parents due to them objecting to the child’s wishes to ‘transition’.
“Children with mental health problems deserve love and support from their parents, not ‘affirmation’ from the state confirming their misplaced belief that they can change genders with life-changing puberty blockers and even surgery.
“The parents’ authority must trump the state over their own children, otherwise we live in a very sick society indeed. It is morally abhorrent that the Swiss authorities are attacking parental rights and pushing trans ideology on children.”
MELBOURNE (10 July 2024) – ‘Billboard Chris’ – the activist known for wearing a sandwich board reading “children cannot consent to puberty blockers” and engaging in conversations in viral videos across the world – has mounted a legal defence of free speech in Australia, with support from ADF International.
Chris Elston, known as Billboard Chris, a Canadian father of two, took to “X” (formerly Twitter) on 28th February 2024 to share a Daily Mail article titled “Kinky secrets of a UN trans expert REVEALED”.
The article, and accompanying tweet, criticised the suitability of transgender activist Teddy Cook to be appointed to a World Health Organization “panel of experts” set to advise on global transgender policy.
"As a father, I have grave concerns about the impact of harmful gender ideology on our children’s wellbeing...we need to be able to discuss it."
Cook complained about the post to Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, who requested that “X” remove the content. The social media platform owned by free speech advocate Elon Musk initially refused, but following a subsequent formal removal order from the Commission, later geo-blocked the content in Australia. X has since also filed an appeal against the order at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in Melbourne.
Billboard Chris, with the support of ADF International and the Australian Human Rights Law Alliance, and alongside X, is appealing the violation of his right to peacefully share his convictions.
Members of the public are invited to join in supporting Chris’s legal case here: https://adfinternational.org/campaign/supportbillboardchris
“No child has ever been born in the wrong body. As a father, I have grave concerns about the impact of harmful gender ideology on our children’s wellbeing. This is a serious issue with real world implications for families across the globe and we need to be able to discuss it.
“Children struggling with distress regarding their sex deserve better than ‘guidelines’ written by activists who only want to push them in one direction,” Billboard Chris, engaging in a legal battle for free speech with support from ADF International.
The legal team representing Elston have filed a statement of facts and contentions, and the evidence which Elston will rely on with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The Tribunal now awaits the response from the eSafety Commissioner, due August 8th, before moving to set a hearing date.
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“It is vital we challenge the global spread of censorship. We’re used to hearing about governments punishing citizens for their ‘wrong’ speech in parts of the world where strict blasphemy laws are still enforced – but now, from Australia, to Mexico, to Finland, we see Western governments increasingly take authoritarian steps to shut down views they don’t like, often by branding them as “offensive”, “hateful”, or “misinformation.”
“In a free society, ideas should be challenged with ideas, not state censorship. We’re proud to stand with Billboard Chris – and others around the world punished for expressing their peaceful views – in defending the right to live and speak the truth,” commented Robert Clarke, Director of Advocacy for ADF International, who is serving as part of Billboard Chris’s legal team.
The Australian case comes at a time of increased suppression of views shared on “X” at the hands of governments across the world.
In Mexico, former congressman Rodrigo Iván Cortés and sitting congressman Gabriel Quadri have been convicted of “gender-based political violence,” and placed on an offenders’ register, for Twitter posts. For expressing their views on biological sex, both have been ordered to publish a court-written apology on X every day for 30 days, 3 times a day, as a form of public humiliation. ADF International is seeking justice for both men at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
In Finland, parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen, a former government minister and grandmother, is currently being prosecuted before the Supreme Court, having been criminally charged for “hate speech” for a 2019 Bible-verse tweet. She was charged under the Finnish criminal code’s section on “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity,” carrying a maximum sentence of 2 years imprisonment. ADF International is supporting her legal defence.
At the international level, the European Commission is advancing efforts to make “hate speech” an EU crime, on the same legal level as trafficking and terrorism. Initiatives such as the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation could have significant implications for how governments police speech, especially as European Commission VP Věra Jourová singled out X for “the largest ratio of mis/disinformation posts”.
In November 2023, free speech champions across the world signed an open letter to Elon Musk, coordinated by ADF International, requesting he back legal cases against government-enforced censorship of posts on X.
Berlin (03 July 2024) – The Higher Administrative Court (Oberverwaltungsgericht) of Berlin-Brandenburg has acquitted pharmacist Andreas Kersten of the charge of breach of professional duty, dismissing an appeal by the Berlin Chamber of Pharmacists. The Chamber has been ordered to cover Mr Kersten’s legal fees. While ruling in favour of Kersten, the Court failed to uphold the freedom of conscience of pharmacists in Berlin.
Kersten was charged in 2018 when he exercised his freedom of conscience to refrain from selling a potentially abortifacient drug, the “morning-after pill,” in his pharmacy. The Court held that Kersten was relying on a letter from the federal Ministry for Health, which stated that pharmacists may exercise their conscience in such situations. According to the Court, he had no reason at the time to seek more legal information, resulting in his acquittal.
“Even though I have been acquitted, I am dismayed by the reasoning rejecting our freedom of conscience. Now pharmacists could be forced to give up their beloved profession simply for staying true to their convictions."
However, in the oral judgment (a written judgment will follow), the presiding judge explained that the duty to provide drugs (including the morning-after-pill) overrides the freedom of conscience – a stance at odds with international human rights law protecting conscience. He noted that a pharmacist who could not reconcile the dispensing of certain drugs with his conscience would have to give up his profession.
“I am relieved that the Court has rejected the sanction demanded by the Chamber of Pharmacists against me. I became a pharmacist to promote health, even to save lives. I cannot reconcile selling the so-called ‘morning-after pill’ with my conscience because of the potential to end a human life, however early. The first instance court initially backed my stance, finding no fault in my conscientious objection. But even though I have been acquitted, I am dismayed by the reasoning broadly rejecting our freedom of conscience. Now pharmacists could be forced to give up their beloved profession simply for staying true to their convictions,” said pharmacist Andreas Kersten after the judgment was handed down.
Background: Charges for exercising conscientious objection
Since 2018, the Berlin Chamber of Pharmacists has been pursuing professional proceedings against pharmacist and (then) owner of the Undine pharmacy, Andreas Kersten. He had declined to stock and sell the “morning-after pill” for reasons of conscience. The Berlin Administrative Court’s chamber for Healthcare Professional Claims ruled in Kersten’s favour in November 2019.
At the time, the court held that pharmacists could invoke their freedom of conscience. However, the Chamber of Pharmacists appealed against the judgment, resulting in Kersten’s protracted wait for justice.
Freedom of conscience in jeopardy
On 26 June 2024, the higher court upheld Kersten’s acquittal in this specific case. It dismissed the Chamber of Pharmacists’ appeal in its entirety and ordered it to pay the costs of the proceedings.
“After more than five years of legal uncertainty, it is now clear that Andreas Kersten did not culpably breach his professional duties. We welcome this finding. However, the reasoning behind the judgment is egregious. In the oral judgment, the Court stated that pharmacists will have to choose between their convictions and their profession in the future, at least in Berlin,” said Dr Felix Böllmann, Director of European Advocacy for ADF International, which has supported Kersten’s case for six years.
Böllmann continued: “The Berlin Higher Administrative Court’s reasoning is in direct contradiction to international law. Fundamental freedoms must be effectively guaranteed, not just on paper. But the Court’s reasoning contravenes freedom of conscience. It is entirely inappropriate for the Court to argue that someone must exit their profession for choosing to exercise their freedom of conscience – this is an argument the European Court of Human Rights rightly rejected years ago.“
“Morning-after pill”: abortifacient effect
In addition to other side effects, the morning-after pill has a potential abortifacient effect.
“No one should be forced to take an action that clearly contradicts their conscience – especially when it comes to life and death. Any pharmacist or doctor who experiences coercion because of this is welcome to reach out to our team. Together we can defend freedom of conscience. A free state committed to basic human rights should never allow what amounts to a professional ban on the grounds of conscience,” Böllmann concluded.
