Interest in euthanasia grows in Australia

The Australia Institute has published the results of a survey indicating that about 70% of the respondents agreed that physicians should be able to provide euthansia in cases of “unrelievable and incurable suffering.”  Over 50% thought that euthanasia should be available for patients suffering from dementia who had expressed a desire for euthanasia while competent.[Herald Sun]

 

RH bill founders in Philippines

Although it is claimed that a majority of members of the Phiilippines House of Represesntatives support the controversial Reproductive Health bill, the bill failed to come to a vote in the house because there were not enough legislators present to form a quorum.  There are now doubts that the bill will pass during this legislative session. [Vancouver Sun]

 

World Health Organization demands referral for abortion

Safe Abortion: Technical and Policy Guidance for Health Systems, a newly revised publication of the World Health Organization, claims that objecting health care workers have an ethical responsibility to refer patients for abortion, or to provide abortions if referral is not possible.  (Sec. 3.3.6, p. 69, Box 3.2,p. 73).  It also claims that conscientious objection without referral is a barrier to health care and that referral is a legal obligation under human rights law.  Chapter 4 of the text, which is the basis for these demands, was revised under the guidance of the Programme on International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada (p. 11).  Two professors from this faculty, Rebecca Cook and Bernard Dickens, have been making such claims for years.  They have, in the past, seriously misrepresented the law on this point in an effort to make referral for abortion mandatory.  (See Postscript for the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada: Morgentaler vs. Professors Cook and Dickens, and Conscientious Objection as a Crime Against Humanity.)   The WHO document has been reviewed and criticized by Susan Yoshihara of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, but awaits a critique by medical and legal professionals.

UN Population Fund makes rights claims

The U.N. Population Fund’s annual report claims that access to birth control is a human right.  The report has no legal significance, but activists like the American based Center for Reproductive Rights have pursued a strategy of seeking such declarations, or “soft norms,” in the hope that they will eventually lead to binding “harde norms” that can be enforced against governments and objecting health care workers. (See Secret Memos Reveal Worldwide Pro-Abortion Legal Strategy)

 

Controversy in Ireland over death of woman after abortion refused

The death of a 31 year old woman at the Galway University Hospital last month is generating enormous controversy in Ireland.  Savita Halappanavar was 17 weeks pregnant when she presented with back pain on 21 October.  Reports indicate that she was miscarrying, but that the foetus was still alive.  She requested an abortion several times but was refused.  The foetus was removed surgically once its heart stopped two days later. She developed septicaemia and died on 29 October. Several investigations are underway. [Irish Times]