Conscientious objection prevents full rollout of abortion services in several maternity hospitals

The Health Department said it will be asking the HSE to fully implement abortion services in all maternity hospitals and units by September.

TheJournal.ie

Gráinne Ní Aodha

THE FULL ROLLOUT of termination of early pregnancy services has been prevented in at least three maternity hospitals because of conscientious objection complications, documents seen by TheJournal.ie show.

Following the Eighth Amendment referendum last year, Health Minister Simon Harris gave 1 January as the date by which abortion services for pregnancies at 12 weeks or under would be provided. . .

. . . The rollout of full abortion services has been slower than expected: although there is some level of abortion services available in all maternity hospitals, just ten out of 19 maternity hospitals or units offer full termination of pregnancy services. . . . [Full text]

Irish obstetrician defies health minister

“I will not be forced and bullied by politicians or by the media into performing or facilitating abortions”

Sean Murphy*

Irish obstetrician defies health minister
Click to see the video

Speaking at the All-Ireland Rally for Life, Dr. Trevor Hayes, an obstetrician at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny, said that he and three consultant colleagues at the hospital advised the HSE (Irish Health Services) that they would not peform abortions.

“A great number of my colleagues are unwilling to perform surgical abortions,” he said, “and they say they will not be forced to carry out this life ending procedure”

[The politicians] want to force doctors like me to do so, and that’s not going to happen.

Would the GPs who are attacking pro-life obstetricians on Twitter perform a late-term surgical abortion? Again, I suspect most of them would not. So why are they trying to force other people to be involved in something so repugnant to those of us who adhere to the first principle of medicine, which is “do no harm”?

Shame on them for failing to respect conscientious rights of their colleagues in medicine.  But we won’t be bullied by them either.

Alberta medical regulator wants College of Family Physicians of Canada to help improve abortion pill access

The Globe and Mail

Carly Weeks

Alberta’s medical regulator is calling on the college representing Canada’s family doctors to help it boost prescribing rates of the abortion pill, saying the current poor access in the province is putting patients at risk . . .

. . . A Globe and Mail investigation on Saturday revealed that the majority of abortion-pill prescriptions across Canada are being written at abortion clinics, which are primarily located in large urban centres. . .[Full text]

Australia needs to recognise conscience rights, not just religious rights

Steady on! What about atheists and agnostics?

Mercatornet

David Van Gend*

Two problems with Scott Morrison’s proposed Religious Discrimination Bill. First, what does it mean for those who make a stand on conscientious, not religious, grounds? Why should our laws protect religious dissenters but not agnostic dissenters?

Second, does it effectively address the actual threats facing religious people? These are not threats to the freedom to worship but the freedom to speak one’s truth in the public square (not so, Izzy?) or educate one’s children in a faith-based school (not a ‘Safe School’) whose teachers uphold religious values.

Let me give two personal anecdotes of the overarching threat, whether to religious or irreligious people, which is the threat to free speech. Without free speech we cannot defend our deepest conscientious or religious convictions. . . {Full text]

Over 30 percent of hospitals in Romania are refusing legal abortions

Doctors invoke conscience clause to avoid performing abortions.

The Black Sea

Lina Vdovii and Michael Bird

Romanian medical student Bianca was in South Korea in March this year when she discovered she was pregnant.

At the time she was taking part in a short work placement in Daegu in the south-east of the country, and was soon to return to Germany to resume her Erasmus programme.

“The news freaked me out,” she told The Black Sea. “I knew a baby would complicate my career and I was not ready for it.”

The next few weeks and months were crucial. She’d not only her Erasmus responsibilities in Germany to consider, but Bianca was also due to sit a series of final-year medical exams at her university in Romania before beginning a hospital residency.

Bianca took the decision to end her pregnancy quickly, and from her temporary home in Daegu she considered the least complicated way to do this. . . [Full text]