Action by nurses opposed to abortion has reduced by more than half the number of terminations in a Puerto Rican hospital. Fifty-two nurses in the obstetrics unit at the University Hospital for Adults in San Juan, Puerto Rico, have not been assisting at abortions for several months. The hospital is the only public hospital on the Caribbean island that carries out the operation.

The nurses have cited "conscientious objection" in their defence - a legal right in Puerto Rico that allows medical personnel to refuse participation in procedures they morally oppose. Dr Riccardo Moscoso, the hospital medical director, told The Tablet that abortions are still taking place at the hospital but the administration respects the right of nurses and doctors to refuse to assist. He said the hospital is performing eight to 10 abortions a month with assistance from nurses who have no objections to abortion. Protesting nurses said that abortions had been averaging about five a week before they decided not to assist.

Several nurses spoke to The Tablet, but asked that their names not be used because the situation is "tense". They said that, besides pro-life values, nurses were motivated by disgust with new hospital abortion policies that broaden the reasons justifying abortion and the procedures that can be used to destroy foetuses.

A second nurse called "brutal" some of the new procedures, which include injecting substances into the uterus to kill the foetus and the late-term "partial-birth abortion".

Dr Moscoso said that the nurses' action started last June when dilation and evacuation, the medical term for partial-birth abortion, was introduced. He said that some nurses also opposed a form of abortion in which the foetus is cut up into sections. Because abortion is legal, the state-run hospital has to provide the service, he said. Abortions are carried out in cases of rape, incest, danger to the health of the mother and a malformed foetus, he said. The nurses said that they continue to assist at non-abortion procedures and will enter the operating room to save the life of the woman if complications, such as heavy bleeding, occur after the abortion. The nurses represent several Christian denominations although most are Catholic, as are 85 per cent of the island's 3.9 million inhabitants. Many women seeking abortions at the hospital are poor, and unable to afford a private hospital. Others come because the hospital specialises in difficult pregnancies, such as foetuses with suspected birth defects, or high-risk cases.