By Peter J. Smith
WELLINGTON, New Zealand, February 22, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A group of New Zealand pro-life doctors are challenging in court new guidelines from the country’s Medical Council that mandates physicians mention abortion as an option to women with doubts about continuing their pregnancies.
The proposed Medical Council guidelines at the heart of the challenge come from a draft dated from March 2009. The text of “Beliefs and Medical Practice” as reported by the New Zealand Herald dictates to medical professionals:
“While the council recognises that you are entitled to hold your own beliefs, it remains your responsibility to ensure that a pregnant woman who comes to you for medical care and expresses doubt about continuing with the pregnancy is provided with or is offered access to objective information or assistance to enable her to make informed decisions on all available options for her pregnancy, including termination.”
The plaintiffs – whose identities remain anonymous to the public at this time – applied to the High Court for judicial review of the guidelines last week.
According to the Herald, the nation’s current Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act permits a physician with conscientious objections to contraception, sterilization, abortion, etc. to refrain from having to provide those procedures or give advice on them at the request of his patient. However, the Act requires the physician in those circumstances to refer a patient to other medical professionals or “family planning” clinics that do provide those services.
The Medical Guidelines take the Act one large step further by requiring doctors to take the initiative with patients conflicted about their pregnancies and mention abortion as a valid medical option.
Right to Life, a New Zealand pro-life organization, applauded the pro-life doctors for challenging the Medical Council’s guidelines, which they called “a violation of human rights.”
“Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom to enable him to make moral decisions,” said Ken Orr, spokesman for Right to Life in a statement.
Orr stated that the doctor always has two patients when he cares for a pregnant woman: the mother and her child and for that reason “has no duty to offer the killing of the child as a treatment option nor is he obliged to facilitate its killing.”“It is tragic at this time when the High Court has warned that there is serious concern about the lawfulness of many abortions authorised in New Zealand that the Medical Council should be seeking to expedite the killing of unborn children,” said Orr.
Since 1977 in New Zealand, abortion has been legal in cases where two doctors certify a threat exists to the mother’s life, physical or mental health; if the child was conceived in cases of incest, rape, or if the unborn child may have a disability. Practically speaking, abortion is available on demand, with 17,940 abortions performed in New Zealand in 2008, a slight drop from a peak of 18,510 abortions committed in 2003.
Government statistics show the highest rate of abortion is among young women between 20–24 years old, with 37 abortions per 1,000 women in that age cohort.