re: #189 Ian MacGregor

I made an error in relying on the spell checker rather than proofreading.

If the effort to save a woman’s life will result in the loss of her fetus. The doctor would must render that treatment. Conscience clauses are not about such situations.

If the patient is in extremis, and the only way to stave off her imminent death is via abortion, the doctor is obligated to perform the procedure. The woman’s life takes precedence. In doing nothing he would also have killed, perhaps both the woman and her unborn child. Of the abortions performed in this country each year how many concern this type of situation?

If the doctor knows that the pregnancy may result in such dangerous complications, he is obligated to advise the patient of that and of his objections to abortion. The woman is free to seek another doctor.

Even in these situations the abortion cured nothing. Pregnancy is not a disease.

Some pregnancies are life-threatening maladies in and of themselves; ectopic pregnancies, for instance. And many other types where malformed or mispositioned fetuses can be fatal.

Then there are the cases where a medical condition that the woman has - frequently a condition that only manifested after conception - renders carrying the pregnancy through to childbirth a hazardous or permanently maiming prospect. Pregnancy-onset diabetes, for instance, can result in heart attack, renal failure requiring lifelong kidney dialysis, stroke-induced coma or paraluysis, or permanent blindness - not to mention death - if the fetus is carried full term.