Category: Procedures & Services

Majority of GPs favour Eighth Amendment repeal, campaigner claims

Halappanavar death a watershed moment, pro-choice GP campaigner says

Irish Times

Barry Roche

A significant majority of general practitioners now favour repeal of the Eighth Amendment, marking a significant change in doctors’ views over the past 15 years, according to long-time campaigner for abortion services Dr Mary Favier.

She says the death of Savita Halappanavar in 2012 proved a watershed moment for GPs, as much as for the general public.

“The death of Savita Halappanavar: that was the watershed moment – as much for GPs as for society at large,” she said. “There were just so many people upset, right-minded people who just said: ‘Oh my goodness, that’s dreadful, how could this possibly happen?’ ”

Ms Halappanavar died at University Hospital Galway a week after she presented with back pain and was found to be miscarrying, 17 weeks into a pregnancy. Although the pregnancy was not viable, her requests for termination were refused because there was a foetal heartbeat. She then contracted sepsis and died of multi-organ failure and septic shock. . . [Full text]

Hawaii legalizes assisted suicide: Refusing to refer for suicide may incur legal liability

Sean Murphy*

Assisted suicide will become legal in Hawaii on 1 January, 2019, as a result of the passage of the Our Care, Our Choice Act. Introduced in the state House of Representatives only in January, it passed both the House and Senate and was approved by Governor David Ige on 5 April. Beginning next year, physicians will be able to write prescriptions for lethal medications for Hawaiian residents who are capable of informed consent, who are at least 18 years old, and who have been diagnosed with a terminal, incurable disease expected to result in death within six months.1

And beginning next year, Hawaiian physicians who refuse to facilitate assisted suicide by referring patients to a willing colleague may face discipline — including expulsion from the medical profession — or other legal liabilities. Hawaii could become one of only two jurisdictions in the world where willingness to refer patients for suicide is a condition for practising medicine.2 . . . [Full text]

The Eighth Amendment and right to conscientious objection

The Irish Times
(Letters to the editor)

Fiona de Londras

Sir, – Thomas Ryan (April 5th) claims that “Once the so-called “right to choose” is placed on legal footing, it is quickly transformed into the right to force people to pay for abortions and force medical professionals to perform them”.  . . .

The right to conscientious objection has been enjoyed by Irish medics, healthcare professionals, and pharmacists for many years. . . but doctors and pharmacists have always had the right to refuse to prescribe or dispense contraception and emergency contraception.

. . . The general scheme of the proposed post-repeal law explicitly protects individuals’ right to conscientiously abstain from direct provision of abortion care.

Mr Ryan appears to object to the continuing obligation to refer a patient to another health care professional . . . Any other approach would privilege the right of a medic in a way that abandons and does harm to the pregnant person. No system could realistically countenance so unbalanced an approach, and it is difficult to understand how one’s conscience could demand it. . . .[Full text]

Medical myths about Eighth Amendment must be challenged

Campaign of fear and misinformation has been deployed to tarnish reputation of Irish medicine

Irish Times

Eamon McGuinness

The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right.’

Those words were inserted into our Constitution by the Irish people in 1983. As a consultant obstetrician, and later as chairman of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, I served Irish women and their children under the auspices of the Eighth Amendment.

It should be a matter of some national pride that Ireland, in that time, has been one of the safest places on earth to be a pregnant woman, and one of the safest places in the world to be an unborn child.

In recent times, a sustained campaign has been waged by some people, including several of my colleagues in obstetrics and gynaecology, to suggest that the words at the beginning of this article put women’s lives at risk.

If that were true, I myself would be leading the charge to have them expunged from the Constitution. A constitutional restriction on my ability, or the ability of any of my colleagues, to save the life of a pregnant woman would indeed be intolerable. Let me therefore be clear: no such restriction exists.

The Eighth Amendment has one medical effect only: it prevents Irish doctors from deliberately, as an elective matter, causing the death of an unborn child. It awards to the child in the womb the right to have their life protected in Irish hospitals, in Irish GP surgeries, and in Irish operating theatres.

That right does not restrict doctors from acting to save the life of a woman where a serious complication arises. . . . [Full text]