Late-term abortion request prompts doctors to review guidelines

CTV Montreal: Abortion snafu The College of Physicians is going to update its guidelines

Quebec's College of Physicians is going to review its guidelines regarding late-term abortions after the MUHC refused a woman's request to terminate her pregnancy.

The Montreal woman was 30 weeks pregnant when she learned there were physical abnormalities with the fetus.

"She was extremely anxious about what her baby would look like," said her lawyer, Jean-Pierre Menard.

She went to the MUHC for an abortion, but the hospital turned her down.

The MUHC said it was following guidelines issued by the Quebec College of Physicians which state that after 23 weeks, an abortion is issued only for serious congenital abnormalities or exceptional circumstances.

The hospital said that since neither the mother nor the fetus's life was in danger, it refused in accordance with the hospital’s values and ethics policy. It felt the late-term abortion was "outside of the usual practices in Canadian society and the accepted standard of practice at the MUHC."

The MUHC said it has performed late-term abortions in the past but that this case did not fit their criteria.

"The main grounds of that was that the fetus was still viable and because of that it was not acceptable that the woman wanted to have an abortion," said Menard.

Dr. Yves Robert of the College of Physicians agrees with that standard of care.

"There's no such problem if there is a clear major problem for the health of the fetus. I think this issue is really not there. The problem is more related to a wellbeing fetus and a woman who doesn't want to finish a pregancy," said Robert.

However her lawyer said that legally, the hospital was in the wrong.

The 1988 Supreme Court ruling in R. v. Morgentaler eliminated legal restrictions on abortion in Canada.

The ruling reads, in part, "forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman's body and thus an infringement of security of the person."

Menard said the decision gives medical professionals no legal grounds to refuse to provide an abortion.

"Nobody has to assess the merit of her grounds or approve her decision," said Menard.

The Canadian Medical Association says that abortion "should be uniformly available to all women in Canada," but a physician "should not be compelled to participate in the termination of a pregnancy."

"Canada is the most liberal jurisdiction in the world about abortion, and we don’t have to apply the rules that are applied in the United States. This is what they are doing with this issue that abortion is not possible when the fetus is viable. This is American," said Menard.

Menard said the College of Physicians' guidelines need to change, and on that point, Robert agrees.

"It is clear that in our criminal code as of today that the fetus has no legal rights up to this point, so because of that we think it has to be clarified that these issues are set. And I must say it was not clear because there were only two lines on this issue," said Robert. "We feel that our members and the public needs more in-depth recommendations."

The woman succeeded in having her abortion at 35 weeks through another doctor after the MUHC refused.