Category: Procedures & Services

Obstetrics and anaesthesia job pre-conditions dismay bishops

Requirement to carry out elective abortions part of National Maternity Hospital job spec

The Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

The Catholic bishops have expressed regret at pre-conditions for applicants in recent advertisements for medical posts at the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin.

One of the main preconditions for applicants for the posts in obstetrics and anaesthesia was a requirement to carry out elective abortions if appointed. . . [T]he bishops said “this precondition runs totally counter to a doctor’s constitutional and human right to freedom of conscience. . .” [Full text]

Womb transplants could be a “vital medical service” for transgender women

BioEdge

Michael Cook

A well-known British cosmetic surgeon says that transgender women (ie, natal males) should be entitled to womb transplants when the technique becomes safe and feasible. Children have already been born after womb transplants from live and deceased donors.

Dr. Christopher Inglefield, founder of the London Transgender Clinic and a specialist in “gender confirmation surgery”, told the Mirror (UK) that it would be possible to perform the procedure on a transgender woman. . . [Full text]

State hospitals must provide abortion if Catholic clinics will not – report

Patient’s life must take precedence over ethos in emergencies, says report

The Irish Times

Paul Cullen

State-owned hospitals should provide abortions in situations where neighbouring Catholic institutions are unwilling to do so, a new report suggests. . . the report says it is clear there will be situations where abortions have to be carried out in acute hospitals, rather than maternity units. There are seven Catholic voluntary hospitals in Dublin, Cork and Limerick . . . [Full text]

Colombia takes medically assisted death into the morally murky world of terminally ill children

The Globe and Mail

Stephanie Nolan

Colombia decriminalized medically assisted death in 2015, the first country in Latin America to take the step, but it went much further last May with a regulation that made the procedure available to children.

It was a particularly striking decision in a socially conservative country where almost 80 per cent of people identify as religious Roman Catholics and where the population of evangelical Christians is growing rapidly; the churches, which vocally oppose euthanasia, are a powerful political force.

Providing assisted death to children is a controversial subject even in the field of palliative care. . . [Full text]

Abortion and the medical profession

The Irish Times (Letter)
Reproduced with permission

Dr. Noreen O’Carroll

Sir, –

Dr Mark Murphy states that doctors who are opposed to abortion are in no way affected by the new service and their conscientious right to objection is respected.

In fact, doctors who have a conscientious objection are legally compelled to make arrangements for the transfer of care of the pregnant woman concerned to someone who will terminate the pregnancy. For doctors who cherish human life from its origins, that is tantamount to making them accomplices in taking the life of a developing baby.

This is an abuse of conscience and contrary to the practice of medicine in the spirit of the Hippocratic oath which prohibits the direct intentional taking of human life.

Dr Murphy, who you omitted to mention is on the staff of the department of general practice at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, is one of a minority of GPs in Ireland who have signed up to provide abortion services; the vast majority of GPs have not done so – 274 was the figure recently reported by the HSE.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of a pro-life group; although as an ordinary citizen, I have consistently advocated for the life of the developing baby to be legally protected and have voted accordingly.

– Yours, etc, Dr Noreen O’Carroll, (Lecturer in Medical Ethics, RCSI), Blackrock, Co Dublin.