Obstetrician Lisa Harris, whose column in the New England Journal of Medicine asserted that protection of conscience laws fail to recognize that abortion providers are motivated by conscientious convictions, repeated her arguments in an interview with the New Scientist magazine. While she admitted that the circumstances of the death of Savita Halappanavar in Ireland are not clear, she speculated that the Halappanavar might not have died had an abortion been provided. She stated that similar problems arise in denominational hospitals in the United States. She described the case of a woman who was referred to her with a “septic abortion ” because the foetus was still alive, and the religiously affilicated hospital where she was first treated would not induce an abortion. [New Scientist]
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)