A survey of Canadian obstetricians and gynaecologists has found that well over half do not perform abortions, citing personal beliefs as the major reason. Other reasons include community opinion and colleagues performing them. It is a relatively small survey and one has to be a little careful about giving it too much weight, but it is encouraging to see that fewer obstetricians and gynaecologists appear to be performing abortions than 10 years ago.
Interestingly, the doctor who conducted the survey is pro-abortion and was therefore troubled by her own findings, claiming in emotive terms that the reason for fewer abortionists might be that the new generation of doctors have never seen women injured from backstreet abortions. It probably does not occur to Dr Laroche that more doctors may be refusing to perform abortions because of our ever-expanding knowledge of pre-natal life or that doctors may feel increasingly empowered to resist attempts at bullying them into acting against their conscience. If the pro-choice lobby really believed in choice, they would be celebrating the fact that doctors are standing up for their own right to choose.
