Category: Abortion

Fury after mothers get thousands in compensation – for healthy babies they tried to have aborted

 Daily Mail

Jonathan Petre and Stephen Adams

Women have successfully sued the NHS for hundreds of thousands of pounds – despite giving birth to healthy babies.

The mothers won the huge payouts after claiming that procedures to stop them having children – including abortions – went wrong.

The women received the cash for reasons including the pain suffered in childbirth and the discomfort of pregnancy.

Last night the former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, hit out at the move, saying: ‘A healthy child is an occasion for thanksgiving rather than for taking the NHS to the cleaners and using up precious funds which could otherwise be more usefully employed.’

And TV presenter and mother-of-two Kirstie Allsopp, who has urged women to have children while they are still young, said she understood that people who had suffered a serious medical malpractice or had a disabled child needed support, but added: ‘It seems to me that to be able to sue the NHS after the birth of a healthy baby is simply not something the majority of people would agree with.

‘The NHS hasn’t got an infinite amount of money. I think parents in that position should think twice.’

The successful legal claims have been made by at least 40 women over the past ten years. . . [Full text]

Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to hear midwives’s case on 11 November

The Greater Glasgow Health Board has appealed to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to overturn a ruling that two midwives cannot be compelled to participate in abortions by delegating, supervising and supporting those involved in the procedures.  The case is to be heard 11 November, 2014.

The midwives’ legal costs have been in excess of £250,000 ($396,758 USD) to date.  The appeal is expected to cost them a further £130,000 ($206,314 USD). The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children is assisting with their legal costs and has appealed for donations.

Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

Greater Glasgow Health Board (Appellant) v Doogan and another (Respondents) (Scotland)

Case ID: UKSC 2013/0124

Issue

Judicial Review – Abortion – Conscientious objection – Midwives

Does s.4(1) of the Abortion Act 1967, which provides that “no person shall be under any duty… to participate in any treatment authorised by this Act to which he has a conscientious objection”, entitle a Labour Ward Co-ordinator to refuse to delegate to, supervise and/or support midwives providing care to patients undergoing termination procedures?

Facts

From the outset of their employment with the appellant health board, the respondent senior midwives, both Roman Catholics, objected to and were exempted from directly participating in the treatment of patients undergoing terminations. Following a service reorganisation, the numbers of abortions performed at the hospital where they worked increased. They sought confirmation from the appellant that they would not be required to delegate to, supervise or support other midwives providing care to such patients. The appellant declined to give this assurance, rejecting the respondents’ grievance and subsequent appeal. The respondents challenged the latter decision by way of judicial review, contending that it contravened s.4(1) of the Abortion Act 1967. They were unsuccessful at first instance but succeeded on appeal to the Inner House.

Judgment appealed

[2013] CSIH 36

Appellant

Greater Glasgow Health Board

Respondents

  1. Mary Teresa Doogan
  2. Concepta Wood

Interveners

  1. Royal College of Midwives
  2. British Pregnancy Advisory Service

 

 

British Pregnancy Advisory Service head says abortion is just birth control

Sean Murphy*

In a column published in The Independent, Ann Furedi, CEO of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, argues that the existing English abortion law should be scrapped because abortion is simply another form of birth control.

Today, abortion is understood to be a fact of life. We expect to plan our families using the contraception that is freely available cost-free on the NHS. But we know that contraception is not infallible, and nor are we. We draw comfort from knowing that abortion is available as a back up to our chosen method of birth control. The existing laws are not fit for purpose – and the way abortion is provided today begs a simple question: why have a law at all?

This is consistent with earlier statements she has made.  In 2010 she told New Zealanders that abortion is required as a part of family planning programmes because contraception is not always effective. She noted that abortion rates do not drop when more effective means of contraception are available because women are no longer willing to tolerate the consequences of contraceptive failure.[TVNZ]

Furedi’s comments indicate that pressure to provide abortion is likely to increase even where contraception is readily available, thus increasing potential for conflicts of conscience among health care workers who do not wish to be involved with the procedure.  They also demonstrate a categorical refusal to acknowledge a critical factual distinction: that preventing the conception of an infant by contraception is not the same as killing an infant by abortion.  This distinction central to the reasoning of health care workers and others who refuse to participate in abortion, though they may have no objection to contraception.

Babies born alive during abortion will receive no help from the Council of Europe, documents show

LifeSite News

LifeSite News Staff

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe is unwilling to take up the issue of babies who are born alive and left to die or killed after an unsuccessful late-term abortion.

Reports from medical workers suggest that many of children born alive during botched abortions are “evacuated” along with hospital waste or left to die in another hospital room or in a storeroom, despite signs of life. Others receive lethal injections or are smothered.

Documents furnished to LifeSiteNews show that a written question from a Spanish member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe submitted to the Committee at the beginning of this year will receive no answer, because the ministers could not reach consensus about what should happen in such an instance. [Full text]

Promises, promises

Canadian law reformers promise tolerance, freedom of conscience

What happens after the law is changed is another story.

Sean Murphy*

Now let me finally cut to the chase, to the heart of this appeal.  The most vociferous opposition to our challenge comes from some church groups, and some disabled organizations.  To the church groups we simply say that we respect your religious views, but they cannot, in this secular society,  trump our clients’ constitutional rights.  And no one is suggesting that a physician who has a religious objection to assisting a patient with his or her death must do so.
Joseph Arvay, Q.C., Oral Submission to the Supreme Court of Canada,  Carter v. Canada, 15 October, 2014

Introduction

With the passage of the Quebec euthanasia law and the pending decision in Carter v. Canada in the Supreme Court of Canada, physicians, medical students, nurses and other health care workers opposed to euthanasia and assisted suicide for reasons of conscience are confronted by the prospect that laws against the procedures will be struck down or changed.  They may wonder what the future holds for them if that happens.

Will they be forced to provide or assist with something they find morally abhorrent?  If they refuse to do so, will they be disadvantaged, discriminated against, disciplined, sued or fired?  Will they be forced out of their specialty or profession, or forced to emigrate if they wish to continue in it?

The realpolitik of law reform

These questions have been largely ignored, since much of the public debate about euthanasia and assisted suicide has been about whether or not the procedures should be legalized, not about what effect legalization might have on freedom of conscience, particularly among health care workers.  Opponents of legalization understandably decline to raise the issue because they are concerned that doing so would compromise the message they want to deliver.

Advocates of legalization, on the other hand, generally recognize that support for euthanasia and assisted suicide may begin to evaporate if it appears that they intend to force unwilling physicians or health care workers to participate in killing patients.  In particular, they do not wish to alienate members of the health care community who, on principle or as a matter of prudent self-interest, would not support such a coercive policy.  Instead, they adopt a reassuring posture of respect for freedom of conscience and tolerance for opposing views within the medical profession.

It is instructive to see how this strategy has been applied in the case of the Quebec euthanasia law and the Carter case, and then to consider how it was applied in the case abortion, another morally controversial procedure.  While we cannot predict the future, we are now in a position to judge the worth of the assurances given when abortion was legalized over forty years ago, and to apply that judgement to assurances now being made about euthanasia. [Full Text]