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Doctors rights to abortion
Tag: referral
Why the abortion bill is a threat to freedom of conscience
Professor Michael Quinlan is Dean of Notre Dame Law School and a Freedom For Faith board member
The Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019 which was introduced into the New South Wales Parliament on 1 August 2019 has attracted some media attention.
Since 1971 in NSW, it has been lawful to terminate a pregnancy where an honest belief is held that the procedure is “necessary to preserve the women involved from serious danger to their life, or physical or mental health.”
This Bill provides that the termination of any pregnancy up to 22 weeks will be permitted without restriction.
After 22 weeks, the Bill proposes that pregnancies may be terminated subject to certain conditions taking into account the woman’s “current and future physical, psychological and social circumstances.”
Freedom of Conscience and Religion
One part of the Bill which has not attracted much attention is the impact it has on the freedom of conscience and freedom of religion of registered health professionals.
In NSW, no referral is required to obtain a termination of pregnancy and information on the availability of such services is widely available on the internet.
Despite these facts, the Bill imposes a referral obligation on all registered health professionals who have a conscientious objection to disclose their conscientious objection to a person who asks them about those matters.
They must then refer the person or transfer their care to another health professional who they believe can provide the service and does not have a conscientious objection. In this way the Bill requires registered health professionals – which is a very broad group of people – who have a conscientious and often religiously grounded objection to participate in the procedure at least to the extent of a referral.
This is so, whether they object to abortion at all, or to abortion after a particular stage of gestation, or for sex-selection or disability grounds.
These obligations impact on all registered health professionals with conscientious objections but they are particularly onerous for Catholic health professionals because, in that tradition, participation in abortion causes an automatic excommunication from the Church.
If the State wishes to further liberalise the law in relation to the termination of pregnancy, it should not do so at the expense of health professionals with a conscientious or religious objection to participating in the procedure.
Abortion debate: Woman told she’s ‘immoral and risking hellfire’
New Zealand Herald
A woman left her general practice in tears after a doctor told her she was “immoral and risking hellfire” for seeking an abortion. Discreetly, the female receptionist rushed after the woman and slipped her a card for a doctor who could help her.
Another woman visited three different doctors for an abortion – and each time was shown the door. . . [Full text]
Over 30 percent of hospitals in Romania are refusing legal abortions
Doctors invoke conscience clause to avoid performing abortions.
The Black Sea
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]
Conscience fight moves to the political arena
The Catholic Register
Having lost twice in court, the battle for conscience rights for health care workers in Ontario is now a political battle.
“We feel we really need legislation,” said Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada executive director Deacon Larry Worthen. “It’s basically for us a call to action.”
The latest setback came May 15 when the Ontario Court of Appeal ruling upheld a College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) requirement that doctors in the province must give referral for medical services such as assisted dying and abortion that conflict with their moral or religious beliefs. . . [Full text]