A right to refuse to kill? Human rights and conscientious objection to ‘assisted dying’ in the UK

Conscientious objection (CO) in healthcare, already much-discussed in academic literature, is to the fore again in light of proposals to legalise ‘assisted dying’ in the United Kingdom. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has rarely considered the issue, but what jurisprudence there is clearly indicates that there is no right to CO for health professionals under Article 9 as currently understood. A right to military CO is now established under Article 9, however, and this chapter proposes (i) that this right can be understood as a ‘right to refuse to kill’, and (ii) that the ECtHR should extend it to health professionals in a very restricted range of contexts. It is argued here that theorising CO to assisted dying as a ‘right to refuse to kill’ could provide human rights protection where none currently exists, and could also facilitate better understanding of issues like ‘indirect involvement’ and ‘effective referral’.