Category: Abortion

Controversy over doctors’ right to say “no”

The most controversial issues relate to abortion referrals or prescribing birth control.

CMAJ September 16, 2014 186:E483-E484; published ahead of print August 18, 2014

Wendy Glauser

Religious groups, doctor’s organizations, ethicists and abortion rights advocates are raising concerns around the review of an Ontario policy that outlines, among other things, physicians’ right to object to patients’ requests for services on moral grounds.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s Physicians and Ontario Human Rights Code is up for its five-year review, with both public and expert opinion being sought.

On one side of the spectrum, faith groups and especially Catholic organizations are asking that the current policy  –  which allows physicians to opt out of non-emergency services they conscientiously object to  –  shouldn’t be amended.

While the policy covers any potential objection, the ones most discussed in the media have been related to abortion referrals or prescribing of birth control. [Full text]

The doctor who refused to abort

 Q&A | Bogdan Chazan lost his post heading a Polish government–run maternity hospital after he said his conscience prevented him from killing an unborn child

World Magazine

Daniel James Devine

Polish media outlets have been abuzz this summer with the story of Bogdan Chazan, a prominent Warsaw doctor who refused to provide a woman with an abortion and was subsequently sacked. . .

. . .The Polish doctor’s troubles began in April, when a pregnant woman wrote to his maternity hospital in Warsaw, the Holy Family Hospital, asking for an abortion. She said her personal physician had detected severe developmental defects in the unborn baby. Chazan, a Roman Catholic who has served as director of the hospital for the past 10 years, wrote back, saying he could not provide an abortion due to a “conflict of conscience.” He provided an address to a hospice that could care for the baby after it was born. [Full text]

Anti-abortion doctor fired

The Warsaw Voice

Prof. Bogdan Chazan, a gynecologist who recently became the central figure in a heated pro-life vs. pro-choice dispute, was dismissed as the director of the Holy Family Hospital in Warsaw June 21.

Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz fired Chazan after the media revealed that, citing a “conflict of conscience,” Chazan had refused to perform an abortion on a patient despite clear medical indications.

The patient had requested an abortion after the child she was carrying was diagnosed with severe health problems, including deformities of the head and face.

Under Polish law, a doctor who refuses to perform an abortion in such cases must refer the patient to another doctor or a medical establishment where she can have the pregnancy terminated.

Chazan did not do that. He said that doing so would have made him an “accessory to an abortion.” [Full text]

Will Doctors Be Forced to Kill?

First Things

Wesley J. Smith

The wailing and gnashing of teeth in some quarters over the modest Hobby Lobby decision has me worried. Apparently, many on the political port side of the country believe that once a favored public policy has been enacted, it immediately becomes a “right” that can never be altered or denied. More, once such a “right” is established for the individual, others should have the duty to ensure access – even at the cost of violating their own religious consciences.

If such thinking prevails, medical professionals could be forced to participate in the taking of human life, for example in abortion, assisted suicide, and (given the research trends in regenerative medicine) providing treatments derived from the intentional destruction of human embryos or fetuses.

That certainly seems to be the direction in which the ACLU wishes to take the country. Recently, the ACLU of Washington State began trolling for potential clients to sue medical professionals or facilities that refused to participate in certain legal procedures or transactions based on religious objection:

Have you or members of your family been denied reproductive health care or end-of-life services by a religiously based medical facility? The ACLU believes that everyone in Washington has the right to receive health care that is not restricted by the religious beliefs of others.

[Full text]

Lynched, fined, and dismissed: an interview with Poland’s Dr. Bogdan Chazan

LifeSite News

Natalia Duholm

Earlier this month, Dr. Bogdan Chazan, a renowned pro-life doctor in Poland and head of the gynecology and obstetrics department at Holy Family Hospital, was sacked and fined after he refused to participate in abortion. He spoke with LifeSiteNews about his ordeal. (See bottom for background on his case.)

Dr. Chazan, you were lynched by the media, your hospital was fined, and you were dismissed as hospital director.  Does it often happen that doctors in Poland are punished as severely as you were?

Not very often.  I’d even say very rarely.  Generally, with people like me, things are dealt with in a quiet way.  For example, more often, big corporations do not hire gynecologists who do not prescribe birth control. Nobody openly talks about the use of the “conscientious objection.”  Things are hushed up, with no paper trail.

For instance, I know about a case where a well-known pro-life woman was denied a post-doctoral track.  Recently, one of the candidates for director of the gynecology department at the Medical University was asked if he had signed the Declaration of Faith/Conscience (Editor’s note: This was an open letter signed by thousands of doctors in Poland; among other things, it voiced opposition to abortion.).  He admitted he had, and did not get the job.  Perhaps, there were other circumstances, too, but I don’t know. [Full text]