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TechnoratiForcing compliance
The Australian state of Victoria has a world first: a law which forces doctors to refer women for abortion or to do it themselves -- even if they have a conscientious objection.
Set in a huge mosaic in the lobby of Parliament House in Melbourne is a Biblical proverb, "Where no counsel is, the people fall; but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety." A good number of healthcare workers in the state of Victoria must be wondering now whether this is still true. Last week their Victorian legislators passed the only law in the Western world which forces doctors and nurses to participate in abortions against their conscience.
The Abortion Law Reform bill decriminalises abortion and forces doctors with a conscientious objection to refer a woman to a doctor who will do an abortion. In the event of a "emergency" abortion -– whatever that is -- regardless of their moral qualms, doctors must do it themselves. Victorian nurses will be in an even worse predicament. They must participate in an abortion if ordered by their boss.
The penalty for non-compliance is not specified, but there is no mistaking what will happen. Conscientious objectors will be hauled before a registration board and stripped of their right to practice. They won’t go to jail, but they will lose their jobs. Dissenters will be squeezed out of the Victorian health system in a workplace version of ethnic cleansing.
The worst feature of this legislation is that it legalises the destruction of innocent and defenceless human life. Women may now have an abortion at any time during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, and later if they obtain the agreement of two doctors. About 20,000 children already die this way in Victoria every year because of a judicial loophole in the old law.
But corrupting the medical profession by forcing doctors and nurses to collude in this is a clear violation of a universally acknowledged human right to freedom of conscience.
Nowhere else in the world does such a draconian law exist, not in New Zealand, not in the United Kingdom, not in Canada, not in the United States. The Victorian Law Reform Commission devoted only seven skimpy paragraphs to conscientious objection in its backgrounder supporting the legislation. It failed to note that nearly every American state explicitly allows some health care professionals to refuse to participate in abortion and even to refuse to refer. In states without explicit refusal statutes, a doctor is protected by laws which prohibit discrimination on religious grounds.
According to a survey by a Canadian group, Protection of Conscience, only Slovenia requires doctors to refer for an abortion. But even there, in an ex-Communist country, another option exists. They can advise their institution of their position and the obligation to refer then falls to the institution.
Why respect for basic human rights in Australia has fallen to the level of Belarus or China calls for some serious reflection. Victorian MPs who would fight to be photographed signing a petition in support of the conscience rights of Tibetan Buddhists have quashed them in their own state. Only two years ago they passed a Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities which guaranteed freedom of thought, conscience, religion, belief and expression on any topic – except, astonishingly, abortion.
Even Liberty Victoria is vehemently opposed to granting health care workers freedom of conscience. This self-appointed guardian of civil liberties told the Law Reform Commission that it did not believe that "that subjective moral or ethical objections should be explicitly protected in legislation." Its motto is "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance" -- but its watchdogs nap during abortion debates.
There is only one bright side to this shameful law: it has exposed "pro-choice" to the world as a rigid, profoundly undemocratic, totalitarian ideology. For pro-choice lobbyists, the content of choice is completely arbitrary; choice needs no moral or medical justification. It must be right simply because it has been chosen. Whether it is a good or a bad choice makes no difference. Only two outcomes are possible -- I get what I want or I don’t. Words like debate, dialogue, negotiation, and compromise fall on deaf ears. And because they are not open to rational discussion, they use raw political power to get their way.
Two years ago several Victorian pro-lifers published a book, Common Ground? Seeking an Australian Consensus on Abortion and Sex Education. Using polls which showed that Australians have a wide range of attitudes towards abortion on demand, they hoped to pave the way for a rational debate about the issues – mental and physical health risks for women, community attitudes, counselling, alternatives, and so on.
In retrospect, this may have been naive. Only the pro-life side was prepared to be rational and accommodating. It lost. The victorious pro-choice side has offered dissenting doctors and nurses the option that Ferdinand and Isabella gave the Jews: conversion or exile.
The 21st century is already shaping up as an age of anxiety: financial volatility, climate change, an ageing population, increasing immigration, militant Islam and the war on terror will offer many temptations to curtail civil liberties and suppress dissenters. The Victorian Parliament has already failed its first test. How will it cope with the ones to come?
Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.
Awful stuff...:(
Isn’t the Governor of Victoria David Morritz de Kretser AC an Australian medical researcher?
Victorian’s should petition him not to sign the bill into law!
A red letter day for the wrong reason! I have already indicated to my Local Member who voted in favour of the Bill that I will have no alternative but to become a “criminal”. In conscience I can not & will not obey this bad law. I am prepared to face the consequences.
For me the issue is “ We ought to obey God rather than man “
And we call ourselves ‘civilised’? And this bill will “move us forward” and “modernise” society?
The pro-abortion side can now longer hide behind euphemisms - what they have done is forced through a law that allows the killing of babies.
One level of a hospital will be saving them - the other level will be compelling unwilling medical staff against their consciences to kill them…
We await the wrath of God
The Victorian Parliament has precipitated a new practice of medicine in which the practitioner must now obey a third party, someone other than the ‘patient’& the Doctor. In some aspects it is but an extension of the principle governing ‘Health Insurance’ & Medicare where a third party is responsible for payment of the Doctor. Where this will potentially lead merits some thought. As one is about to be anaesthetised, it will not add to confidence to wonder if someone will pay the anaesthetist (or surgeon) more if the patient does not awaken than will the patient on return to health.
This Bill hastens the demise of covenantal Medicine where what is judged best for the patient prevails, to contractual Medicine where one gets what one pays for. Is the Victorian Parliament sufficiently educated to ‘practise Medicine in its own right’? For that is what is assumed by this Bill.
When women were persuaded to trade their virginity & integrity for the so-called freedom & protection of the so-called contraceptive pill, abortion became an essential ‘back up’ for an unplanned pregnancy. When men chose to remain ‘playboys’ rather than to accept responsibility for their sexual liaisons, that too favoured resort to abortion.
We now reap the results. The future is not bright.
This radical Bill was tabled and passed in the name of clarifying the law and simply “decriminalising” abortion. That was the first big lie. The Bill’s proponents claimed that doctors and women undergoing abortions might be hauled off to prison at any minute. The second big lie. The proponents said that the question would be subject to the democratic process. Government then accepted the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s assertion that the vast majority of submissions were unrepresentative because they opposed totally or partially the goals of the abortion providers. The Government and the proponents of the Bill, then proceeded to make false public statements about the effect of the Bill- no doctors would be coerced, it was just a simple decriminalisation exercise, its just abortion up to 24 weeks. Media reports were mostly misleading.
Most MPs who voted for the anti conscience clause would not see doctors who wanted to explain their concerns. Women’s groups, including many who work with women with crisis pregnancy or post abortion problems were unwelcome.
The debate, which surely was about something very important, was reduced to a charade, a ping pong match of sound-bites. Lies and a refusal to consider even views of stake-holders, let alone ordinary people (so many have been personally hurt by abortion) characterized the “debate”. This is democracy 21st century style. It was a performance manipulated and controlled to achieve the pre-ordained withdrawal of any meaningful legal regulation of abortionists and their operations. Even doctors trying to help distressed pregnant women may face severe constraints in discussing options and alternatives. We dont know yet- because the Bill was not clear. Wasn’t it supposed to clarify the law? Only if your business is abortion. Doctors with any concerns about abortion, from full objection through to late term or coercion concerns will face mirky legal regime indeed.
Bad news! There should be no question of compelling doctors or nurses to act against their consciences. If you go down that road, you risk compelling people to do whatever legislators may decide: as happened with immoral experiments done on prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. This law is immoral and therefore not truly law at all; it does not bind people in conscience.
Perhaps a key medico-legal defense is: what is an “emergency” abortion? I doubt it exists, medically. It is very rare, that disease in pregnancy threatens the mother’s life. Even in such cases, there are always options, medically, to do the best possible for both the mother and the offspring in the womb, e.g. by inducing labour prematurely, even if that reduces the chance of survival of the newborn baby - which is not the same as directly killing it.
If a woman says she must have an abortion, as a matter of urgency, in fact, I would think, it is never never necessary, medically, as an emergency.
A great man was condemned to death by people who believed they could do so under the guise of democracy. In his defence this man said:
“How you, O Athenians, have been affected by my accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that they almost made me forget who I was--so persuasively did they speak; and yet they have hardly uttered a word of truth.”
Two thousand years later the Victorian Parliament would have also put Socrates to death.
I dare suggest that the pro-choice lobby is due for a name change to reflect its new reality: “my-choice” would do.
Michael Cook has rightly pointed out that in passing the contentious Abortion Bill the Victorian Parliament has failed its first test. It has failed to honour the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities which it had passed and which ‘guarantees’ freedom of religion and conscience. Well, I am disappointed but not surprised that the MPs have shown utter contempt for the long-held beliefs of many of the State’s citizens. Yes, theirs are long-held beliefs which, till now, have been considered to be legal and noble. Now, one Bill has made them into potential criminals. What a shame.
But why am I not surprised? First of all because many of these MPs merely follow their party leaders, even when they disagree with aspects of a Bill that is being discussed. Since they have surrendered their conscience to the Party they believe others should also do the same. Secondly, I believe that there is a world-wide campaign by secularists to curb religious beliefs. Their first step is to exploit pro-abortion activists. Fortunately for them there is no objection from Muslims and Hindus on this issue. However, once they win this first round, and the precedent has been set, they will move on to the other stages, namely euthanasia and same-sex marriage.
It is difficult to find words to express the seriousness of this development, especially because it has occurred in such a “fair go” culture as Australia. No matter where we stand on abortion, it should be seen as appalling by any person who believes in a human right to freedom of conscience and the necessity for mutual respect as foundational to a democratic system of governance. Michael Cook’s excellent, carefully restrained article should be taken as a warning of grave dangers to human rights and civil liberties to come. Abortion is just the tip of an iceberg of a wide range of upcoming conflicts on many important values issues.
There is just one point on which I would comment. That is: “For pro-choice lobbyists, the content of choice is completely arbitrary; choice needs no moral or medical justification. It must be right simply because it has been chosen. Whether it is a good or a bad choice makes no difference.”
That’s correct and it describes the moral relativism on which the pro-choice lobby is based. But it’s important to note that pro-choice is not pro-choice for those people whose choice is not the same as their’s, as this legislative development shows so dramatically by expressing that reality in law. In short, pro-choice is not pro-choice for healthcare professionals whose choice is not to be involved in abortion. Pro-choice would be more accurately labelled as “pro-our-choice only”. That, as Michael Cook says, is totalitarianism and it’s also fundamentalism - taking an absolutist position and using coercion to impose one’s views on everyone else whether or not they agree with them.
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