Conscientious objection has emerged and consolidated according to the requirements arising from the exercise of citizenship in a Democratic Constitutional State. It can be declared whenever a person or a group of people are faced with conflicting issues that go against their personal beliefs in situations such as compulsory military service, coping with extreme situations such as euthanasia, prenatal care or abortion, object of this work. Most of these tensions arises in health care, confronting opposing positions, which causes conflicts of difficult moral mediation. Bioethics offers tools to intermediate ideological, moral, religious and philosophical conflicts, promoting advocacy and contributing to the achievement of the secular state and conscientious objection. The health professional experiences challenging situations, however, conscientious objection should not put at risk the health care process, right guaranteed by law for all people. Generally, the conscientious objector declares its position in situations such as abortion provided by law, which is a right of Brazilian woman, in case of pregnancy resulting from sexual violence, risk of death for women and anencephaly. OBJECTIVE: To know and understand the existence of conscientious objection on abortion provided by law in a public hospital. METHODS: exploratory, descriptive research, developed through multidimensional research on a pragmatic conception, based on the use of mixed methods. RESULTS: The results of the integrative review (article 1) revealed that the appropriation of Objection of Conscience concept by health professionals is incipient. Nurses anchor its meaning based on the Code of Ethics of Nursing Professionals. The article 2 presented the profile of the women who underwent the termination of pregnancy from 2007 to 2013. The pregnancy was, for the most part, a result of extra-familial sexual violence, stopped up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, and 7.4% of pregnancy interruptions deviated from the protocol used for uterine evacuation. Most women said they were of evangelical religion and mulatto, aged between 26 and 35 years old, did not record police report. The qualitative research revealed that the team that welcomed these women by the time of abandonment suffered from the difficulty of coping in this delicate moment of women’s lives. CONCLUSION: Nurses presented more difficulty to understand the right to the objection of conscience by little ownership to everyday practice and have limited knowledge of the Code of Ethics that incorporates the idea in the case of abortion. Compliance with the protocol for the time of uterine evacuation, according to the technical standard, is still not solid. Intra and extra-institutional discussions about the subject of conscientious objection and its relationship to abortion provided by law are necessary, in order to guarantee the right to bioethical principles of women and girls who seek the service. DESCRIPTORS: Conscientious Objection (uncontrolled); Legal abortion; Health personnel; Nursing staff; Knowledge, attitudes and health practice; Bioethics.
Tese (doutorado)—Universidade de Brasilia, Instituto de Biologia, Departamento de Biologia Celular, 2015.