A review of the medical standards in abortion services and some resulting problems.

• Author: Francis, Charles
• Position: 132189659
• Pages: 35(7)

In the past, in most countries the medical profession was held (and rightly) in very high esteem. The majority of medical practitioners have always derived considerable personal satisfaction from the benefits they are able to achieve for their patients. What was in the patient's best interests was invariably the guiding principle, and that was the essence of any decision made by a medical practitioner in determining what medical treatment the patient should receive.

Unfortunately the United States Supreme Court judgement in Roe v Wade opened up a huge new area of medical practice in which these principles were no longer applied. That may well be one of the reasons why this area of practice is now increasingly being referred to as the "abortion industry" rather than a professional service. At or about the same time abortion industries developed in many other Western countries.

Whilst this paper is primarily concerned with the physical and mental damage done to women by abortion, it is important to note that one of the greatest threats to the human family today is population decline. Many developed countries are now confronted by a "demographic winter", the major cause of which is the choices made by women to avoid or abort pregnancies.

In the provision of abortion there are so many unfortunate aspects of the way in which these services are provided that medical practitioners performing abortions often become the very antithesis of what professional men should be.

The typical abortionist derives no satisfaction from the work he does, tends to despise and even hate women, and as time goes by finds it increasingly difficult to live with himself. Amongst abortionists there is a surprisingly high incidence of alcohol and drug abuse and suicide. (1)

At times one cannot but wonder whether abortionists should be considered to be a part of the medical profession at all, but whilst abortionists continue to be regarded as a branch of the profession, inevitably they will continue to lower respect for the profession. Abortion is the "red light" district of medical practice, an area most medical practitioners do not want to know about and are reluctant to discuss. So long as this continues to be the situation, no proper medical standards will be imposed on those who provide abortion services.

In the United States and Australia, abortionists are increasingly being sued (and justifiably) by their patients. With such litigation both the medical profession and the general public will inevitably learn much more about the abortion industry and how services are, in fact, provided.

Today when a woman believes she wants a termination of her pregnancy, often she simply rings the clinic concerned and a time is fixed for the performance of the operation. The woman arrives at the appointed time, sees the operating surgeon momentarily (sometimes not at all), and very shortly after her arrival the abortion is performed. When a termination is performed in that way what occurs is a breach of a most fundamental duty of a medical practitioner. No medical operation should ever be performed unless the surgeon first satisfies himself that the operation is likely to be in the best medical interests of the patient. In fact whenever a pregnant woman comes to a doctor, there are not one but two patients, the mother and the child. To each the medical practitioner owes a duty.

Secondly, before any operation is performed the medical practitioner needs to obtain some personal history from the patient, as well as a family history, in so far as that history could be relevant to the operation to be performed. There are many questions which need to be asked. Of special importance is the psychiatric history of the patient and her immediate family, and...