Category: Procedures & Services

Bishops condemn bills to expand abortion, repeal conscience protection

Catholic News Service

Jacob Comello

The bishops from Illinois’ six dioceses March 28 made a decisive stand against state legislators’ efforts to remove all abortion restrictions in the state, as well as the right of physicians to object to the practice.

At a news conference livestreamed from the Illinois Capitol in Springfield, Catholic Conference of Illinois Director Bob Gilligan told reporters on no uncertain terms that “we are here today to oppose these bills.”

. . . The Senate and House bills Gilligan is referring to are S.B. 1942 and H.B. 2495. Either, if passed, would greatly alter current Illinois law. . . . [Full text]

Right to Conscientious Objection to Abortion Burning Issue in Croatia

Total Croatia News

HINA

ZAGREB, March 27, 2019 – Health Minister Milan Kujundžić on Wednesday called for compliance with the legislation when it comes to honouring the right to conscientious objection concerning the issue of abortion, while at the same time that procedure should be made available.

“Anything that is in contravention with ethical and moral principles deserves condemnation,” Kujundžić said, and commenting on the case of a woman in Dubrovnik who underwent an abortion procedure without anaesthesia due to the anaesthesiologist’s refusal to participate in the procedure, the minister said that the hospital should have engaged other doctors in such cases when their colleagues invoke the conscientious objection clause which allows them to refuse to participate in the termination of pregnancy. . . [Full text]

Archbishop supports doctor who refused to perform legal abortion

Correo del Sur

César Vale

Caution: Machine assisted translation of César Vale,”Arzobispo respalda a médico que se negó a practicar aborto legal.” Correo del Sur, 25 Marzo, 2019.

The archbishop of Sucre, Monsignor Jesus Juarez, backed the doctor of the National Health Fund (CNS) who refused to perform an abortion based on his claim of conscientious objection, and was subjected to administrative discipline.

“I would like to give my full support to all the doctors who really bet on life, first because life is the best gift that God makes humanity, and second, life is the first right that every person has, and also the right of the unborn, ” said Juarez.

In past days, the CNS of Sucre decided to suspend the doctor J.N.M., interim chief of the Gynecology and Obstetrics Service of the Obrero Hospital “Dr. Jaime Mendoza “, and to begin an administrative disciplinary proceeding for refusing to perform the legal termination of the pregnancy of citizen P.A.A.

Catholic hospital group sued for refusing transgender hysterectomy

Cathoic News Agency

San Francisco, Calif., Mar 25, 2019 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- A group of five Catholic hospitals in California is being sued by a woman who identifies as a transgender man after one of its locations, St. Joseph Hospital, Eureka, refused to perform a hysterectomy.

Oliver Knight is suing St. Joseph Health of Northern California, alleging that she was refused the surgery because of her “gender orientation.”

The suit was filed in the Humboldt County Superior Court on Thursday, March 21. In the lawsuit, Knight says that workers at the hospital canceled the surgery because she identifies as transgender. . . [Full text]

Bolivian doctor to be prosecuted for refusing to perform an abortion

LifeSite News

Jeanne Smits

LA PAZ, Bolivia, March 25, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — A Bolivian doctor has been suspended by that country’s National Health Fund (Caja Nacional de Salud) for having refused to perform an abortion on a woman pregnant with an anencephalic child. “N.M.,” as he is known, will also be prosecuted before an administrative court, together with the former director of the Jaime Mendoza Workers’ Hospital in Sucre, where the refusal took place.

Abortion is illegal in Bolivia except in cases of rape, incest, danger to the mother’s health, or a lethal malformation of the unborn child.

It was this last case that was invoked by a woman from Cochabamba in February of last year after medical examinations revealed that her baby had a serious congenital malformation. She was five months pregnant. . . [Full text]