LifeZine No. 746: 18th Jan 10
Pregnant Mothers in Life-Threatening Situations: Irish Doctors “Will Intervene Always”, Euro Court Told
In 2008, up to 700 women developed complications during pregnancy that might have required what the law deems a lawful abortion, the Irish Government estimates. But authorities have no precise figures on how many such procedures took place in Ireland. The details are in State documents lodged with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) last month as part of Ireland’s defence against an assault upon her abortion laws. In this case—“A, B and C versus Ireland”—three women are challenging the State’s abortion laws on the basis that they had to travel abroad to abort pregnancies which allegedly threatened their health or well-being. The case was heard last month and a ruling is expected toward the end of the year. When the ECHR requested figures on the number of lawful abortions in Ireland, the State replied that it could not provide those details. But it said the Department of Health had recently analysed a number of medical conditions that might require the termination of a pregnancy. It explained that the number of these cases—683 in 2008, 628 in 2007 and 543 in 2006—as well as Ireland’s low maternal death rate challenge the assertion of the three women’s lawyers that appropriate treatment is not available for pregnant women in life-threatening situations. Records from the State’s acute hospitals show 683 discharges with a diagnosis of an ectopic pregnancy in 2008. Such pregnancies—where the unborn baby develops outside the mother’s uterus—can be life-threatening, because there is a danger of rupture and haemorrhage. But the State’s figures do not differentiate between procedures to remove an ectopic pregnancy, those that follow a spontaneous miscarriage caused by an ectopic pregnancy, or “procedures to treat a ruptured ectopic pregnancy”. So the State says it cannot say exactly how many of the procedures were to end an ectopic pregnancy. It emphasises, though, that Ireland has a particularly low maternal death rate, one that is significantly below the EU average. This, the State argues, challenges the “unsubstantiated” argument made by lawyers for the three women that what the law deems an abortion is largely unavailable in Ireland, even in life-threatening situations. “Such statements”, it adds, “fail to take account of the evidence of medical practitioners that in life-threatening situations they ‘will intervene always’”. The Irish Times. January 6.
Rights of Human Embryos Highlighted in Leading Irish Newspaper
In a letter to The Irish Times, Dr Oliver Joyce of the School of Science, Sligo Institute of Technology, said, “[A]s a parent, I have come to realise that children owe their parents nothing”. “Children do not decide to be born”, he continued, “parents decide to have children. Once that decision has been made, and fertilisation occurs, a new human life exists. An embryo is a person, life begins at conception. Whether this conception occurs in utero or in vitro, it doesn’t matter, the fact remains that a fertilised egg is the result”. He noted that “The issue of whether to implant an embryo comes down to one very simple fact. It is not a question of the mother’s right, it is not a question of the father’s right; it is about the person’s right to life”. The Irish Times. December 17.
Senior UK GP Flew Pregnant Teen Daughter to Spain for Late-Term Abortion
A senior British GP flew her heavily pregnant daughter to Spain for a late-term abortion, the General Medical Council (GMC) heard recently. Dr Saroj Adlakha allegedly paid a centre in Barcelona 3,200 euros to abort her daughter’s 31-week unborn baby in 2003. The legal limit for most abortions in Britain is 24 weeks. The allegations first surfaced five years ago when undercover reporters from The Sunday Telegraph filmed the doctor apparently admitting she took her 18-year-old daughter to the Ginemedex Clinic in Barcelona for the abortion. Dr Adlakha faces a GMC hearing and is charged with irresponsible, inappropriate and dishonest misconduct. In 2005 she and her daughter were charged with conspiracy to commit child destruction abroad, but in 2007 authorities dropped the case. The GP has cost taxpayers £600,000 since being suspended from the NHS more than four years ago, including the cost of two locum doctors to cover patients at her surgery while she is banned from working. She was running the Shilpa Medical Centre in Kings Heath, Birmingham, at the time of the alleged abortion, but first she took her daughter to the Calthorpe Clinic in Edgbaston, where she had worked earlier, to request an abortion. “She must have been very well aware of the seriousness and the potential consequences to her as a doctor”, Heather Norton, representing the GMC, told the tribunal. “The mere fact, we would suggest, that Dr Adlakha had to take her daughter out of the jurisdiction to obtain a termination, strongly suggests that, whether correctly or not, Dr Adlakha believed that it would not have been possible to obtain a lawful termination in this country”. Lawyers for the GMC asserted they were forced to get the daughter’s medical records through legal channels after the GP refused to hand them over, conduct that Miss Norton called “fundamentally contrary to her obligations as a medical practitioner”. The GMC then suspended the GP, of Somerset Road, Edgbaston, in February, 2005, over allegations of misconduct. The case continues. The Daily Telegraph. January 5.
EU Calls for Expressions of Interest in Science Ethics Committee
On December 23rd, 2009, the European Commission adopted the Decision to renew the mandate of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) for the period of five years (C (2009) 10353). On the basis of this Decision, a call for expressions of interest in membership of the Group is now on the EGE website. The call is open until January 31, 2010. The role of the EGE is to provide the Commission with high-quality and independent advice on ethical aspects of science and new technologies in connection with the preparation and implementation of European Union legislation or policies. The EGE provides its advice either at the request of the European Commission or on its own initiative. Details: http://ec.europa.eu/european_group_ethics/docs/cei_ege_2010_2015.pdf
Federal Study Admits Links Between Breast Cancer and Abortion, Contraception
A study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center shows a strong correlation between the use of oral contraceptives and a particularly deadly form of breast cancer. The study found that the connection was highest among women who began using oral contraceptives while still teenagers. The study was especially noteworthy because it contained an admission by a researcher from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Louise Brinton, that abortion also raised the rate of “triple-negative” breast cancer. She had previously headed a study that denied evidence of a link between abortion and the incidence of breast cancer. The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer has asked why the April 2009, study has not received major media coverage yet: “Although the study was published nine months ago”, noted Karen Malec, Coalition president, “the NCI, the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and other cancer fundraising businesses have made no efforts to reduce breast cancer rates by issuing nationwide warnings to women”. Catholic Culture. January 6.
Montana Becomes Third US State to Legalise Assisted Suicide
The Supreme Court of Montana ruled at the end of December that nothing in state law prevents doctors from aiding patients in killing themselves, making it the third US state to approve assisted suicide. Oregon and Washington also let doctors prescribe the drugs necessary for committing suicide. Though the court found that a doctor who helps a patient to kill himself cannot be prosecuted, it did not declare assisted suicide a constitutional right. A measure that the Legislature passed in 1985, concerning the withdrawal of treatment for terminally ill patients, created “public policy”, the majority said, that in effect shielded a doctor from prosecution for helping hasten the death of a consenting, rational, terminal patient. The two dissenting justices replied that the majority had misread the intent and meaning of the 1985 law and had given it a breadth it was never supposed to have. “The statute provides no support for physicians shifting from idle onlookers of natural death to active participants in their patients’ suicides”, they wrote. Opponents of the measure are already planning to bring the issue to the legislature. Zenit. January 1. New York Times. January 1.