Maryland ranks highly with NARAL.

Since 1992, Maryland law has:

• Permitted abortion on demand, even late in pregnancy;
• Protected abortionists from legal action;
• Allowed abortionists to perform abortions on minors without notifying a parent; and
• Left health care workers who refuse to make abortion referrals as a matter of conscience vulnerable to civil liability and disciplinary action.

Maryland’s abortion law is recognized as one of the most permissive in the country by NARAL Pro-Choice America (NARAL), formerly known as the National Abortion Rights Action League. In its evaluation of state abortion laws, NARAL gives Maryland a grade of “A,” and ranks it 5th in the nation for “reproductive rights”.

This story shows just how safe abortions can be, even in the most permissive of places.

BALTIMORE — Maryland health officials have ordered two doctors to stop performing abortions after a woman was critically injured during a procedure last month.

The state Board of Physicians ordered Dr. Steven Brigham to stop practicing medicine without a license in Maryland and suspended the license of Dr. Nicola Riley. Police raided one of Brigham’s offices in Elkton looking for medical records, and found dozens of late-term fetuses in a freezer at a clinic.

Riley and Brigham brought an injured 18-year-old woman in a personal vehicle to Union Hospital in Elkton after a failed abortion Aug. 13, according to the board’s orders. The woman was then taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where she was found to have a uterine perforation.

[…]

Brigham is licensed in New Jersey, but not Maryland. Riley has a license in Maryland, but “poses a threat to her patients’ safety and well-being and thereby represents a danger to the public,” according to the board’s order.

Happily, not every doctor or physician is in favour of abortion, but what challenges are those who oppose it faced with in Canada? Sean Murphy, Administrator for the Protection of Conscience Project, is an advocate for the exercise of freedom of conscience in health care who was kind enough to answer my inquiries into the situation for physicians.

1) What (if any) discrimination exists for physicians whose religion/beliefs restricts them from performing an abortion?

Many physicians decline to provide abortions, especially those done after about 14 to 16 weeks gestation. The Canadian Medical Association prohibits discrimination against physicians who refuse to provide or assist in abortions. The CMA sates: “Respect for the right of personal decision in this area must be stressed, particularly for doctors training in obstetrics and gynecology, and anesthesia.”

Generally speaking, abortion activists do not believe that objecting physicians should be compelled to provide abortions themselves. Henry Morgentaler, for example, opposes such coercion because “doctors should not be obliged to do things which they don’t approve of themselves” and “a doctor who doesn’t believe in it is more likely not to do a good job.”

Thus, open and direct discrimination against physicians who refuse to participate in surgical abortions has not been evident in Canada, though it has occurred elsewhere. Anecdotal reports indicate that physicians may occasionally encounter pressure to participate in abortions and that objecting physicians may sometimes experience adverse reactions among colleagues. The more common problem is a demand that objecting physicians dispense potentially abortifacient or embryocidal drugs or devices, or facilitate abortion by referral or by some other means.

Medical students, junior practitioners, nurses and other health care workers are more vulnerable to coercion and have experienced discrimination in Canada, including denial of employment and dismissal.

2) What (if any) legal obligations does a doctor have when a women requests an abortion that they themselves will not perform?

In Canada, if a woman who is pregnant requests an abortion or seems adverse to having a child, her physician is obliged to disclose and discuss all legal options, including adoption and abortion, so that she is aware of legal choices available to her and the benefits and harms associated with them. The physician is obliged to tell her if he is unwilling to provide an abortion for reasons of conscience or for other reasons, so that she can seek the assistance of another physician who is willing to assist.

Except in Quebec, a physician is currently under no obligation to facilitate a procedure to which he objects by providing referrals or other assistance in locating a service provider. Some physicians would object to providing such assistance because of concern that it makes them morally complicit in the procedure. The Project’s view is that the demand for referral for abortion that is made by the Collège des médecins du Québec is unacceptable. Like all standards of practice and codes of ethics developed by provincial regulatory authorities, it is subject to a challenge under human rights legislation.

Over the last number of years, abortion activists have been making increasingly strident demands that objecting health care workers facilitate abortion by referral. To this end, they are attempting to use human rights theory and legislation as weapons to attack freedom of conscience in health care.

I am grateful to Mr. Murphy and the Protection of Conscience Project for their work and continued support for physicians, because not every doctor is on the side of Dr. Garson Romalis whose delivery of this message at the University of Toronto leaves me speechless (the medical student’s choice of words is remarkable).

I want to tell you one last story that I think epitomizes the satisfaction I get from my privileged work. Some years ago I spoke to a class of University of British Columbia medical students. As I left the classroom, a student followed me out. She said: “Dr. Romalis, you won’t remember me, but you did an abortion on me in 1992. I am a second year medical student now, and if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be here now.”

From CBC News…

The Canada Revenue Agency has given up on any further action against abortion protester David Little.

Little, who has spent the last few years moving back and forth between P.E.I. and New Brunswick, has refused to file tax returns since 2000 in protest of government-funded abortions. He was due in court in Fredericton this week to face a charge of refusing a court order to file them.

Little was found guilty in 2007 on three counts of failing to file, and eventually was sentenced to 66 days in jail for refusing to pay the $3,000 fine. He believes it’s his religious right to refuse to pay taxes because he doesn’t want his money funding abortions.

Now, I realize my tax dollars fund many wonderful things, and I realize I’m not in the position to stop paying them. However, there are a few things I can do to fund the pro life cause in an attempt to level the playing field.

When raising funds for Chernobyl Lifeline in Ireland, we would offer businesses a certificate to hang on their entrance stating they were supporters of the organization. Shoppers, especially in small communities, were more willing to part with their hard earned money when they felt they were supporting a good cause. Recently, I came across an ad for Real Estate for Life online, which had me wondering what other pro life and pro woman companies were out there. (Steve Jobs made me a loyal customer when he took a stand against pornography in the App Store.)

With a little research, you can find your own local pro life businesses (on-line directories, church bulletins, billboards, yellow pages etc.). If you look for the pro life certificate hanging in the window, you’ll be surprised just how many are out there. So while you may not want to stop paying your taxes, you can support the cause by becoming an educated consumer.

Why do women still need a prescription for the birth-control pill?

When I was 21, I went to my local walk-in clinic to get birth control. The experience began just like any other doctor’s visit. The nurse, wearing a blue plastic ring looped onto a string around her neck, asked me a few basic questions to start the process. She asked me when my last exam had been, I told her I had never had one. She then requested I come back to the clinic in a few weeks to have one. I did not have a pelvic exam during this appointment.

I expected her to explain birth control pills to me, but as she pulled on the blue ring with her index finger she told (sold) me about a product called NuvaRing (new on the market at that time). I looked around and saw a NuvaRing calendar hanging on the wall, a NuvaRing clipboard she was jotting notes on, and a NuvaRing clock hanging in the waiting room as I left the building. I left the clinic, with a 1 year prescription for NuvaRing in hand, a NuvaRing CD case (my free gift with purchase) and two packets of PlanB that the nurse told me to use after intercourse if I had any within the first two months of using my new prescription “Just in case.” She did not explain to me what PlanB was or what it did, it was simply described as a back-up birth control.

Today, I feel very ignorant of having not known what I was putting in my body, but I still believe a health care employee has a duty to explain these things before writing a prescription. This is why I am against over the counter birth control access, because even with so-called educated medical staff at our side, we’re still very much in the dark when it comes to contraception. I don’t want the responsibility of education to be left to pharmaceutical companies, because they might take the job even less seriously.

But the prospect of women gaining unfettered access to the pill has some doctors and sexual health counsellors uneasy. Would women still see their doctor for Pap smears? Could they safely screen themselves for contraindications – conditions under which the pill should not be used? Would it unleash a marketing bonanza for drug-makers and a huge increase in users?

Nevertheless, a Canadian leader in reproductive medicine and editor of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada says it seems wrong and paternalistic that, half a century after the pill’s debut in the U.S. and 41 years after coming to Canada, women still cannot get access to the most effective, self-administered birth control on the market without a doctor’s blessing.

Men aren’t required to have a testicular or prostate exam before using condoms, Dr. Tim Rowe has argued in the pages of his own journal.

Condoms, for better or for worse, aren’t chemical contraception. Men don’t gain weight, have mood swings or get blood clots from wearing a condom (regardless of what your boyfriend tells you). I wish the process of obtaining birth control, for myself, had been more in depth than it was.

It’s that time again, when university students filter back into the HRM and fill the streets with rucksack heavy bodies and iPod-laden heads. College is an important time in the lives of our young women, so Health News Digest is offering their advice for female students this year.

In particular, women need to understand the dangers involved in binge-drinking and the unique health risks that may be posed, including: date rape, unwanted pregnancies and unprotected sexual encounters. According to numerous studies, over 90% of date rapes on college campuses involve the use of alcohol.

“New freedom may mean that [students] end up engaging in behaviors that pose significant health risks,” says Diaz, “having sex, using drugs or alcohol, or maybe just getting too little sleep, eating too much junk food, or otherwise neglecting areas of [their] health [their] parents previously made sure [they] took care of. The consequences of these risky behaviors can potentially cause problems for the rest of [their] lives.”

Now, the phrasing isn’t perfect, but I like the general message. Think before you act.

Recently, Nebraska failed to pass its legislation requiring higher standards of practice for abortion clinics, but where Nebraska has failed, Virginia has prevailed.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued a legal opinion yesterday that empowers the Virginia Board of Health to require women’s health clinics that offer abortion procedures to meet hospital-like standards.

The new regulations will cover medical investigating to rule out coerced abortion and statutory rape possibilities prior to an abortion. It is up to the Health Board now to enforce them.

The reason for the many inconsistencies in patient treatment at abortion clinics versus those in a hospital is down to the fact that abortion is considered an out-patient procedure. So, like getting Botox injections on your lunch break, it’s too simple and quick a procedure to require all the paperwork, patient screening and face time with medical staff. The difference is the effects of Botox wear off over a few months.

Clinics view these regulations as an attempt to close them down, but the arguments for them consider how these patients’ lives will be effected physically and mentally after the procedure. Hospitals are required to know their patients’ history, and they are held accountable for a failure to do so. There is no reason an abortion clinic shouldn’t be required to do the same.

In Canada,

Under the Assisted Human Reproduction Technology Act passed in 2004, a surrogate who carries a fetus for others may be reimbursed for expenses such as prenatal vitamins and costs of travelling to the doctor. She cannot receive any sort of wage for carrying the child.

Few women and even fewer couples, are willing to undergo surrogacy within these guidelines. The law has been criticized for being ambiguous.

The law is vague, and no one is sure which expenses are legitimate, said Stephanie Scott, who runs a surrogacy agency in Texas, where surrogates who work for her may be paid up to $25,000 US plus expenses for carrying the child.

The uncertainty surrounding the Canadian law has created a chill among infertile couples, Scott said.

“They’re afraid to do it in Canada. A lot of people think they’re going to go to jail,” said Scott. “If they send their surrogate, you know, $600 for her rent or whatever, they try to pay it in cash, under the table, so there’s no paper trails.”

This has pushed the search for couples desiring surrogacy outside the continent, looking primarily in countries like India.

You can outsource just about any work to India these days, including making babies. Reproductive tourism in India is now a half-a-billion-dollar-a-year industry, with surrogacy services offered in 350 clinics across the country since it was legalized in 2002. The primary appeal of India is that it is cheap, hardly regulated, and relatively safe. Surrogacy can cost up to $100,000 in the United States, while many Indian clinics charge $22,000 or less. Very few questions are asked.

But this doesn’t mean there is a consensus in India. The debate is complex. Opponents argue that surrogacy further perpetuates a social pressure for women to have children and exploits the economic situation of Indian women living in poverty, while the advocates argue that surrogacy is a right that poor women should be allowed to financially benefit from. For many, there is no easy answer.

If you have the time, this talk show has a great debate about the issue (running time approx. 50 minutes).

Recently, there has been an influx of alternative resource centres for crisis pregnancy opening across north America. The problem? Abortion providers don’t like their new neighbours operating in such close proximity. These alternative centres operate with the goal of offering resources to pregnant women, some (as shown in the documentary 12th and Delaware) with the specific intent to change the minds of women considering abortion.

So, where exactly should these centres locate themselves? If a centre wanted to operate near the highest level of at risk women, a place where it would have the highest level of impact, it would open its doors in poorer areas with young populations. Say… near a public high school? But wait, that’s exactly where the abortion clinics are.

The newest mega-clinic recently opened by Planned Parenthood (the second largest clinic in the world) in May of this year is located at 4600 Gulf Freeway Houston, TX. Thanks to Google Maps, one can clearly see that this mega-clinic is smack dab in between the University of Houston and Austin High School. Where is my local abortion clinic? The Halifax Sexual Heatlth Centre (formerly Planned Parenthood) is located at 6009 Quinpool Rd. between two local high schools.

Location, location, location.

LB594 won’t get its day in court, not because the people of Nebraska don’t agree with it, but because they can’t afford to fight it out.

Nebraska’s attorney general will not defend a new state law requiring health screenings for women seeking abortions, because there is little chance that the controversial law will prevail in court, his spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Attorney General Jon Bruning (R) agreed to a permanent federal injunction against enforcement of the law, which faces a challenge from Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, said his spokeswoman, Shannon Kingery.

“It is evident from the judge’s ruling [to temporarily block the law from taking effect] that LB594 will ultimately be found unconstitutional,” she said. “Losing this case would require Nebraska taxpayers to foot the bill for Planned Parenthood’s legal fee. We will not squander the state’s resources on a case that has very little probability of winning.”

Just so this is perfectly clear, the state (therefore the representatives of the Nebraska population) voted for and passed this law. Planned Parenthood of the Heartland with its financial upper-hand challenged it, and now it won’t be upheld because there’s just too much money at stake.

During my recent trip across the border, I spent my time reading statistics (fun stuff) on reasons given for abortion. The majority of reasons, from financial to emotional, amounted to one answer: being unprepared for motherhood. Which started me thinking, when does motherhood begin?

My health insurance company answered this question as the moment of “active labour,” but for many of us, the answer still remains as elusive as defining the role itself.

When does one become a mother? Is it the moment of conception? The first time you hear your baby’s heart beat? When you hold your small miracle for the first time?

“I had my first maternal feeling driving home from the lab after having my pregnancy test. I was so excited and wanting to race home to share the news. I realized I was driving too fast and didn’t have my seat belt on. It was a strange feeling, but great!” – Leah, mother of 2 year old Ainsley

“My first son died when he was four months old. Mother’s day followed two months later and I remember feeling like a mother, but being fearful that no one else saw me that way. When all of the mothers were called up for a special blessing in church that day, everyone was urging me to step forward. It felt really good to be recognized as a mother.” – Amanda, mother to Adam, 3 year old Angela, and baby-to-be

“I think I was in shock during the whole pregnancy. I was excited about the baby, but just found it so hard to believe. They handed me the baby and I still didn’t feel connected right away. That night he was crying in the bassinet and I felt overwhelmed with emotions. After 9 months it finally sunk in, ‘I was a mommy!'” – Sally, mother to two year old Trey and 6 month old Abbey

For some women, motherhood may begin prior to conception, with fertility treatments, prenatal vitamins, decorating and shopping for baby. The very idea of a baby has changed these women physically and mentally towards motherhood. For others, motherhood may begin after adoption papers are signed and the baby is finally brought home. After conception, is it really something that can be avoided?