"Revista Argentina de Teoría Jurídica" Publishes Special Issue on Reproductive & Sexual Health Law

Via Martín Hevia (School of Law, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; Global Fellow, International Reproductive & Sexual Health Law Programme, University of Toronto):

Revista Argentina de Teoría Jurídica of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella is the law journal of the School of Law of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella at Buenos Aires, Argentina. Its Vol. 13 is a special issue on reproductive and sexual health law.  It includes dossiers on sexual and reproductive health, conscientious objection, and medical confidentiality.

The special issue on Reproductive Rights includes Spanish translations of papers on conscientious objection by established scholars in the field:

Professor Bernard Dickens from the University of Toronto and Professor Rebecca Dresser from Washington University in St. Louis: "Servicios de Salud Reproductiva y el Derecho y Ética de la Objeción de Conciencia" and "Profesionales, Adecuacíón y Conciencia" respectively.

"Secreto Profesional Médico y Servicios de Salud Sexual y Reproductiva en la Jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos" is a case comment on the leading case of the Inter American American Court of Human Rights on medical confidentiality, "De la Cruz Flores v. Perú" (2004), by Martín Hevia (School of Law, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella; Global Fellow, International Reproductive & Sexual Health Law Programme, University of Toronto) and Oscar Cabrera (O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center).  The paper discusses the legal implications of De la Cruz Flores on the scope of medical disclosure of confidential information in the provision of post-abortion health care in Latin America.

"Derecho y Deber de Confidencialidad" by María Mercedes Cavallo (Graduate Scholar in Reproductive and Sexual Health Law, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto), is a detailed discussion on the fact that many Latin American legal systems that penalize abortion require medical professionals who assist a woman who has had an abortion to report the crime to official authorities, and how this is a barrier to women and adolescent girls' access to reproductive health services in Latin America.

In "Responsabilidades en los Servicios de Salud y Objeción de Conciencia," originally published in English as column by the IJGO, Professors Rebecca J. Cook and Bernard Dickens (Faculty of Law, University of Toronto) and Mónica Arango (Center for Reproductive Rights) comment on a recent decision by the Colombian Constitutional Court on conscientious objection,Sentencia T-209 (2008). The Court held that objecting providers have duties to refer patients to non-objecting providers, and that hospitals, clinics and other institutions have no rights of conscientious objection. The authors explain why the Court's decision has widespread implications for how healthcare systems must accommodate conscientious objection and patients' legal rights.

In "Secreto Profesional y Obligación de Denunciar en la Jurisprudencia Argentina," Emiliano Villa (law student at the School of Law, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella) reviews the Argentine case law on whether the State can start criminal prosecutions against a woman who has had an abortion based on a report by the medical professionals in charge of her post-abortion health care.

The dossier also includes a transcript of a debate on conscientious objection organized by the students that took place at the Auditorium of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella on June 8, 2009. The panelists were professors from several local universities with different viewpoints on conscientious objection. Faculty, students, members of the bar and doctors attended the session. Panelists and audience remarked upon the students' extraordinary achievement in organizing a debate on this complex topic.

The final paper is an interview to the President of the Argentine Society of Anthropological Medicine. The aim of the interview is to hear about the viewpoints of an Argentine doctor on human rights, conscientious objection and medical confidentiality. The doctor notes that medicine students should receive more formal ongoing education on human rights and the role of Bioethics Committees to educate doctors on the importance of medical confidentiality.

Revista Argentina de Teoría Jurídica is devoted to legal research. The journal is published in July and November of each year and accepts submissions both in English and Spanish. It is a theoretically-oriented journal of law. General jurisprudence, moral and political philosophy, economic analysis of law and doctrinal analysis are among its main concerns. The journal also accepts case law commentaries (provided they include theoretical content), notes and surveys of literature.

Students of the Law School are in charge of the publication and have the possibility of contributing notes and other works. An Editorial Board made up of Law Students and an Academic Committee of Law School professors controls the direction of the journal.

The entire symposium issue is available online, free of charge, here.