A petition with 13 signatures has been tabled in the Parliament of Victoria, Australia, supporting Dr. Mark Hobbart of Victoria, who refused to refer a couple for sex-selective abortion. [Sunraysia Daily]
Tag: Victoria (Australia)
Abortion law changes eyed as Dr Mark Hobart probed
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Napthine government is not ruling out changes to Victoria’s abortion laws ahead of an investigation into a doctor who refused to give a couple an abortion referral because they wanted a boy.
The state government said it was interested in the outcome of the Medical Board of Victoria’s investigation into Mark Hobart, a pro-life doctor who has been accused of breaking the state’s abortion laws.
It comes as pro-life advocates run a concerted campaign to repeal a section of the Abortion Law Reform Act, which requires doctors who have a conscientious objection to abortion to refer a woman to someone with no such objection. [Full story]
Doctor risks his career after refusing abortion referral
A DOCTOR risks being deregistered because he allegedly refused a referral for an Indian couple who wanted to abort a healthy unborn baby girl at 19 weeks, simply because they wanted a boy.
Dr Mark Hobart, 55, has been under investigation by the Medical Board of Victoria for five months, accused of having committed an offence under the state’s controversial Abortion Law Reform Act of 2008.
His patient and her husband requested a sex-selection abortion after an ultrasound determined their fetus was female.
They only wanted a boy, the husband told Dr Hobart, who, as a practising Catholic, had a conscientious objection to providing the abortion.
Under Victorian law, he was obliged to refer the patient to a doctor he knew would terminate the pregnancy.
But Dr Hobart doesn’t know any doctor who would agree to abort a healthy baby for sex selection reasons.
“The general response from my colleagues is disbelief and revulsion,” he said.
In any case, a referral is not necessary for an abortion. Hobart’s patient independently procured the abortion a few days later. Neither she nor her husband made any complaint.
But Dr Hobart now finds himself subject to a star chamber inquiry by the Medical Board of Victoria. [Full text]
Australian physician threatened with discipline for refusing to refer for sex-selective abortion
Couple wanted a boy – wanted to abort girl
Dr. Mark Hobart, a physician in Melbourne, Australia, refused to refer a couple for an abortion at 19 weeks gestation. The couple wanted the abortion because they had learned that the woman was carrying a girl. They wanted a boy, not a girl. They found another physician without the referral and had the abortion.
Under the state of Victoria’s Abortion Law Reform Act 2008, objecting physicians are obliged to refer patients seeking abortions to a willing colleague. The law was passed despite vigorous opposition from health care workers who protested the Act’s suppression of freedom of conscience.
Dr. Hobart is aware of the law and refuses, for reasons of conscience, to conform to it. [Herald Sun] [Related: Couple abort girl because they wanted a boy]
Australian physicians unwilling to provide late term psychosocial abortions
A former health services commissioner who was among those behind the passage of a controversial abortion law in the State of Victoria is complaining that the law is “being thwarted at the service provision level.” Her concern focuses on women seeking late term abortions – apparently 16 through 24 weeks gestation and beyond. Physicians are reported to be willing to provide late term abortions only for eugenic reasons, but about 70 women annually ask for late term abortions for “psychosocial reasons.” Another factor reducing availability appears to be the need to give priority to devote health care resources to addressing illness and other health problems over “psychosocial” issues. One clinical advisor has suggested that this could be rectified by a regulation requiring that abortion be given legal priority. [The Age]