Doctors would `opt out' of terminations

The Master of the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin, Dr Declan Keane, has told TDs and senators that most of his colleagues would be opposed on the grounds of conscience to legalised abortion in Ireland.

He was giving medical evidence on the second day of the public hearings on abortion being held by the all-party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution.

He was replying to Ms Liz McManus TD (Labour) who said a relatively high number of pregnancies ended in abortion, about 12 per cent. Women were going abroad, without necessarily having counselling or seeing a doctor, she added.

She asked if there was any merit "in facing up to what was happening anyway," and having a policy to reduce abortions among Irish women, but also to provide for the possibility in the State.

Dr Keane said: "If you are asking me, as I think you are, that we need to face up to this problem sooner or later, and perform terminations in this country, instead of people travelling to the UK, I think that is something that obstetricians would feel extremely uncomfortable with in this country, because at the end of the day the people who would be asked to carry out the terminations are the gynaecologists in this country."

He said that for "religious, moral, ethical reasons" most of his colleagues would be extremely unhappy to be asked to do so.

"In fact, most, I am sure, would not do it . . . All of us who worked in the UK system had a moral opt-out for not performing it. And we didn't."

If the Oireachtas introduced legal terminations on demand, he thought, the vast majority of the his colleagues would be "conscientious objectors" to taking any part in it.

Asked by Mr Seamus Kirk TD (FF) about the impact of the availability of abortion in Britain, Dr Keane said it was a regrettable aspect of the obstetrics and gynaecology practice there.

"I have no doubt that when Britain decided to go down this route in 1957, it was with the best possible intentions, and possibly started off with the same kind of discussions we are having now, that it was going to be primarily for physical and psychological risks to the mother.

"Over a period of time, it has eroded into the current status quo."

The real answer was not dealing with unwanted pregnancies, but preventing them from happening in the first place. "I bemoan the fact that so many of these terminations of pregnancies are done for failed contraception."

Replying to Mr Derek McDowell TD (Labour) Dr Keane said that doctors were "uncomfortable" in giving information on terminations to women in the case of foetal abnormalities where there was no possibility of independent life outside the womb.

"But you are allowed to do so," said Mr McDowell.

Dr Keane replied: "Well, again, this is where we are looking for a degree of clarity . . . A lot of women with these abnormalities, in an Irish context, for religious, moral and other reasons would want to continue their pregnancy."

Dr Keane said it might perhaps be useful to have some alteration to the Constitution giving women in this situation the ability to have their pregnancy terminated if it was their desire. The unfortunate scenario, at the moment, was that women with such pregnancies went to units in the UK, most of which did not perform an autopsy on the baby.

Therefore, the pathology backup for subsequent counselling was not there. Psychological support was also often lacking.