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Impact of the Oviedo Convention and its Protocols on Legislation

and Practices in Slovenia

Joze Trontelj

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Oviedo Convention in Slovenia

Slovenia has had a long and respectable history of medical ethics. Had one of the oldest National Medical Ethics Committees.

However human rights situation 1945-1991 problematic.

As a new independent state, Slovenia needed a lot of new legislation.

The European Convention on Human Rights has set standards over much of Europe. Not in Yugoslavia.

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Oviedo Convention in Slovenia

“Hunger for Ethics” at the end of the Communist Era: great respect for ethical projects of the Council of Europe.

Effects are seen in legislation, medical practice, and in biomedical sciences.

Public perception of ethical issues?

The Oviedo Convention is the most important, but not the only source of reference offered by CoE.

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Oviedo Convention in Slovenia

Slovenian Government and Parliament understood the exceptional value and significance of ethics in functioning of the society.

Slovenia among the first countries to ratify the Oviedo Convention and its Additional Protocols.

CDBI and other bodies of the Council of Europe: undisputed authority in ethical opinion.

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Oviedo Convention in Slovenia

The new legislation and the consequent legal and medical practice where the Oviedo Convention and its Additional Protocols played an essential role:

Law on Patients’s Rights:

Consent to therapeutic interventions & research Medical decisions about patients unable to consentAdvance directives Compensation for undue damage

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Oviedo Convention in Slovenia

The Slovenian Law on organ transplantation is based on the corresponding Additional Protocol of the Oviedo Convention.

Similar restrictions re. live donors.

Proxy Consent to removal of organs from brain dead donors: attempt to change to the “opting out principle”.

Public concern: Are brain dead patients really dead?

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Oviedo Convention in Slovenia

Law on Infertility Treatment and Biomedically Assisted Reproduction

Not much helped by the Convention.

CAHBI (1989): Report on human artificial procreation.

Priority to the right of the future cild to be born into a healthy family environment - rather than serving the sole interests of the prospective parents

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Oviedo Convention in Slovenia

Convention (Art. 28) stipulates public debate, esp. on new ethical issues.

• Cloning • Creation of embryos for research • Embryonic stem cells• Gene technology• End of life decisions, including euthanasia

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Oviedo Convention in Slovenia

What future work in bioethics by the CDBI ?

Re-examining some end-of life issues

Rec. 1418 of the Parliamentary Assembly on the rights of terminally ill and the dying;

Rec (2003) 24 on palliative care (the Committee of Ministers)

Terminal vs. palliative sedation.

Seminar on decisions in relation to medical treatment at the end of life, 2010.

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Oviedo Convention in Slovenia

What future work in bioethics by the CDBI ?

Instrument (protocol?) on the protection of embryo in vitro

Protocol on protection of human rights and dignity of persons with mental disorder

Guidelines concerning access to medical files

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Oviedo Convention in Slovenia

In conclusion,

The Oviedo Convention is appreciated as an exquisitely important milestone in bioethics in Slovenia.

It has provided valuable guidance and point of reference for the legislator, the medical doctors, biomedical researchers, and the general public.

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