Catholic midwives win right to not help with abortion plans

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So I take it you would be willing for the abortion to take place if the patient was going to be harmed, even if it was against the midwife's beliefs?

If medically necessary then absolutely.

Well, if what you're actually trying to do is start a debate over neonatal circumcision, then by all means let's do so.

I take the view that there is no medical argument for or against neonatal circumcision. It is not medically necessary in general, but neither is it harmful in general. In those circumstances in which a parent has expressed a reasonable wish for the procedure (for example, a case of religious observance) and in which it is not contraindicated, I take the view that it is incumbent upon a physician to perform the procedure regardless of personal feelings upon the matter, if only to ensure that the procedure is peformed in medically acceptable circumstances.

I believe that a physican could be found professionally responsible if the physician refused to perform the procedure, and parents then turned to non-medical person (such as a mohel) who caused significant injury.

Why would midwives be doing abortions anyway? Aren't those done by doctors? They are here.

The word that is important here is 'assist'. So, that could be anything to do with their duties in helping an abortion to happen, not just physically.

My opinion on the matter is irrelevant to the point I was making, I do not think it should held against medical professional to refuse to preform unnecessary procedures if it goes against their personal or religious beliefs. I used circumcision as an example since it's typically done for religious or cultural reasons as opposed to abortion which someone may object to for religious or cultural reason.(not that those are those are only reasons why someone may do/object to do those procedures) Both can be medically necessary and at that point I would agree that physician or whatever should be held responsible for not treating the patient. Obviously we disagree here and I assume our opinions on both of those procedures probably differ as well.

The word that is important here is 'assist'. So, that could be anything to do with their duties in helping an abortion to happen, not just physically.

Fair enough.

But in this case, I think the operative difference still lies between contractors and professionals.

Doctors who are employed by hospitals are obliged to comply with the terms of their employment. If a hospital says, "perform this abortion," to an obstetrician in its employ, the obstetrician has two choices: comply or resign. If a doctor enters into a contract with a hospital to obtain admitting privileges, then the obstetrician must fulfil the terms of the engagement with the hospital, which may, or may not require compliance.

But if an obstetrician maintains a private practice, and a woman comes to the obstetrician seeking an abortion, the obstetrician is free to say, "I don't provide that service, here is the name a of a doctor who will," provided that the woman's health is not endangered by doing so.

At the risk of suffering some abuse, I will state my thoughts on this. If I was a young woman, training to be a midwife, I would expect that, in my career, I would be helping women to give birth to babies and to help take care of the babies, for a few days thereafter. I would also expect that some babies would be born dead and know that I would have to help the mother through that. If, several years into my employment, I was then told that I would be assisting in abortions, which were not medically necessary for the woman's health, I would probably have a hairy canary and swiftly hand in my resignation. I'm sure there are plenty of nurses who could assist with this, who are not sickened by the whole process. It actually fills me with revulsion and there's no way on this earth that I could allow myself to be involved. It's not for religious reasons, as I don't believe in God. And it's not because of the sight of it either, as I would be quite willing to be involved in surgery of any sort, if it was going to ease some sort of physical suffering. The simple matter is that I don't believe unnecessary pain should be inflicted on any living being and an unborn foetus is just that (well in my opinion anyway), even one that is too young to survive premature birth. Killing a foetus (one that has nerves and a brain that can feel pain) does inflict pain (yet again, that may be a matter of opinion), so I could not live with the guilt of being involved in such a procedure. I would like an excusal on those grounds.

I haven't spoken about this on here before, as I know how strongly we all feel about such matters. But, as this is a Scottish case, I could quite easily have been one of those women, had I chosen that career path (it was an option I thought about for a long time, as a teenager). Having two women, in the whole of Scotland, being excused from this duty, really is not a big deal in my estimation. It might be the start of things to come however, but I really don't see that midwives should be involved in this at all anyway.

I don't thinl your thoughts should attract any abuse--they are clear, cogent and rational.

But I have trouble with the notion that health care professionals (and I certainly consider midwives to be professionals) can pick and choose the procedures that they will involve themselves with on behalf of an employer. A professional in private practice is free to limit her practice as she sees fit, within the bounds of the professional conduct requirements of her profession. But a professional who is an employee of a service provider is in a different place, and I think that resignation was the only ethical course for these two midwives.