Category: New Zealand

New Zealand Green Party will force referral for abortion for non-medical reasons

Sean Murphy*

The Green Party of New Zealand has published a position paper that includes a number of statements concerning abortion in the country.  The paper notes that the law now requires that abortion must be approved by two physicians on grounds that the procedure is necessary to preserve the woman’s mental or physical health or because of fetal disability. The party states that, since “99% of abortions are approved on ‘mental health’ grounds,” the current legal situation is ‘dishonest’.  This seems to be a frank admission that 99% of abortions are not, in fact, necessary to ensure mental or physical health.

If it forms a government, the party would decriminalize the procedure completely up to 20 weeks gestation, while continuing “current practice” beyond that point.  In addition, the position paper states that “to prevent coercion either for or against abortion,” it will:

Ensure medical oversight agencies, such as the Medical Council, maintain, publicise and enforce codes of ethics mandating that personal beliefs (including religious, political and moral) are protected, however the practitioner is required to refer the patient to a neutral practitioner in a timely manner.

Three points about this proposal are of interest.

First: it implies that a physician willing to provide an abortion is “neutral” with respect to the procedure, while a physician unwilling to do so is not.  This is incorrect.  To take a position either for or against the acceptability of abortion involves a moral or ethical judgement, just as a moral or ethical judgement is involved in stealing or refusing to steal.

Second: objecting physicians not infrequently refuse to facilitate morally contested procedures by referral because they believe that doing so makes them complicit in the act.  Demanding that they facilitate abortion by referral is not protective of their freedom of conscience or religion.

Third: if the paper is correct in asserting that  no medical grounds exist for “99%” of abortions now taking place in New Zealand,  there would seem to be no reason to compel objecting physicians to refer for the procedure.

Australian and New Zealand palliative physicians oppose euthanasia

The Australia and New Zealand Society for Palliative Medicine (ANZSPM) has issued a statement opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide. Statements of this kind indicate that the legalization of the procedures would generate significant conflicts of conscience among members of the medical community.

New Zealand abortion activists complain about physician freedom of conscience

Dr. Joseph Lee, a physician in Blenheim, New Zealand, has been criticized by abortion activists because he refused to prescribe contraceptives for a 23 year old patient.  Dr. Lee practises at the Wairau Community Clinic.  A pamphlet in the reception area advises patients that some of the clinic’s physicians will not prescribe contraceptives, and staff attempt to direct patients accordingly.  The clinic leader may consider installing a sign to minimize further conflicts.

Dr. Lee identifies himself as a Catholic, but is reported to have said that he would be willing to prescribe the birth control pill to a woman who was spacing children or had had at least four children.  That is not consistent with the teaching of the Catholic Church on the subject, and it is an unusual position among health care workers who object to providing contraception.

The Abortion Law Reform Association NZ (ALRANZ) wants the General Medical Council to force objecting physicians to refer patients or otherwise assist them to obtain morally contested services.  The president of ALRANZ, Dr. Morgan Healey, claims that a High Court decision in 2010 has made the question of referral legally ambiguous. [New Zealand Herald]

However, Justice Alan MacKenzie of the High Court in Wellington, New Zealand,unambiguously ruled that New Zealand’s Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act protected objecting physicians, and that the General Medical Council could not force them to refer abortion.  All that is required of a physician who objects to abortion is to decline to begin the process and inform his patient that she may obtain the procedure from another practitioner.  The protection of conscience provision states that objecting health care workers are not obliged “To fit or assist in the fitting, or supply or administer or assist in the supply or administering, of any contraceptive, or to offer or give any advice relating to contraception.”  The ruling was the result of litigation by the New Zealand Health Professionals Alliance, which, earlier this year established a website to support freedom of conscience for health care workers.

 

Protection of conscience initiative launched by New Zealand health care professionals

NEWS RELEASE

For immediate release

Protection of Conscience Project

The New Zealand Health Care Professionals Alliance Te Hononga Mãtanga Haurora O Aortearoa has launched a website highlighting the interest of the Alliance in freedom of conscience in health care.  The new site features a Best Practice Guide, Patient Support and Resources, and an introduction to the Alliance’s Mentorship Programme.

The Alliance is a non-denominational organization that welcomes members from all health care professions, including nurses & midwives, doctors, radiographers, pharmacists, laboratory technologists, anaesthetic technicians, and radiation therapists.  Hospital chaplains may also join.  Membership is open to professionals in training, practice and retirement who support the purposes of the organization.

Sean Murphy, Administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project, offered his congratulations to the Alliance.

“Since the Project began in 1999, it has emphasized the importance of local initiatives of this kind,” he said, “and especially the need for health care professionals to become active in support of their own fundamental freedoms.”

“The people best placed to respond to pressures against freedom of conscience in health care are those closest to the action,” Murphy explained.  “New Zealanders know best what challenges they face in their own country, and how to respond effectively to them.  The history of the Alliance demonstrates that quite clearly.”

The New Zealand Health Professionals Alliance (NZHPA) was incorporated in 2009 in response to an attempt by the Medical Council of New Zealand to suppress freedom of conscience by means of a direction called Beliefs and Medical Practice.  Relying on the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003, the NZHPA applied to the High Court for a judicial review of the draft statement because it considered it unlawful.  The court supported the NZHPA, and the Medical Council ultimately decided not to publish the direction.

New Zealand Medical Association against euthanasia

The Chair of the New Zealand Medical Association has stated that the Association would continue to be opposed to euthanasia even if the procedure were legalized.[EPC]The statement clearly indicates that conflicts of conscience would arise among health care professionals were New Zealand to permit or require their involvement in providing euthanasia or assisted suicide.