Abortion: ‘Doctors require legal flexibility’

Doctors must be given the legal “flexibility” to decide when they should terminate the pregnancy of a woman at risk of suicide, the country’s most senior obstetrician has said.

The Master of the National Maternity Hospital, Dr Rhona Mahony, said she needed to know she would not be sent to jail for “doing the right thing and saving a woman’s life”.

In a robust presentation to the Oireachtas health committee’s special hearings on abortion, Dr Mahony said legislation must be “broad” and she urged the Government to end the criminalisation of doctors for doing their job.

The committee will today continue its hearings on the issue ahead of the Government’s planned drafting of legislation to allow for abortion in limited circumstances.

The most contentious question for some TDs is whether the threat of suicide should be legal grounds for abortion and who should determine if the threat is real.

The recent expert group report recommended that two psychiatrists and an obstetrician should decide whether a pregnant woman’s suicide threat is genuine before allowing an abortion.

However, the masters of the country’s two major maternity hospitals told TDs and senators yesterday that doctors must be trusted.

Dr Mahony said there were no clear rules in determining the risk of suicide.

“There will always be a lack of certainty. We deal with medical probability.

“The assessment of the risk to life in the context of mental disorder is a medical decision and doctors must be trusted to make these decisions. This is our area of expertise, this is what we do. This is our job and what we are asking for is legal protection in doing this job.”

Dr Sam Coulter-Smith, Master of the Rotunda Maternity Hospital in Dublin, said the “certainty of risk” was a “grey area”.

“We have to trust in our excellent doctors and trust in the judgment of those individuals and protect them in making those decisions.”

Suicide was the cause of two maternal deaths in the past three years.

However, Dr Coulter-Smith said it was impossible to say if there was a threat of suicide in the cases of the estimated 4,000 women who travel to Britain for an abortion each year.

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict’s intervention in the debate again exposed fault lines within the Coalition.

In remarks seen as a comment on Ireland, the Pope told diplomats in Rome he was “dismayed” by moves to legislate on abortion. Yesterday, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said Irishwomen needed legal clarity on the issue and “more than understanding and mercy”.

He made his remarks at a joint press conference on Ireland’s presidency of the EU with Europe Minister Lucinda Creighton, who queried whether the Pope had said Irish women should not be given legal clarity.