October 3, 2002
Medical Research Council tries to reclassify pregnancy

In an outrageous effort to overturn centuries of scientific medical thinking, the Medical Research Council (MRC) in South Africa tries to reclassify pregnancy as a pathological condition and appears to suggest that one should help hurting women by killing their babies.

The recent statement by the MRC that an unwanted pregnancy is a health risk is very shocking. It is remarks like these that raise the concern that the MRC is not functioning as an objective scientific body but may be pushing a political agenda. With this single statement the MRC is trying to overturn centuries of medical science which has always looked upon pregnancy as being a normal physiological condition.

Even psychologically, there is no proof that an abortion resolves the psychological trauma and stress of an unwanted pregnancy. According to an article in the British Medical Journal, the suicide rate after abortions was found to be three times the general suicide rate and six times that associated with birth. The suicide rate for women following a live birth has been shown to be 5,9 per 100 000, following miscarriage 18,1 and following abortion 34,7 per 100 000.

Doctors For Life International (DFL) warns organisations and groups who are trying to put pressure on health professionals to take part in abortions not to continue with this intimidation. The present resistance from health professionals to take part in abortions may be an indication that killing their patients are going against the most basic principles of medicine as imbedded in the Hippocratic Oath and in the principle to "first do no harm". The harm that abortions do to both the mother and the child is well documented. In the first place these health professionals do not refuse to help with abortions for selfish reasons, but out of concern for the patient's wellbeing.

We remind such groups that the clause in the draft abortion law that would have forced a doctor or nurse, unwilling to do an abortion, to refer the patient to another doctor/nurse who would be willing, was scrapped before the bill was voted upon in 1997. This was done under pressure from all the opposition parties at the time. The Canadian Medical Association clearly states that "a doctor who refers a patient for a procedure he believes to be wrong, is morally just as culpable as the doctor who performs the procedure".

Doctors For Life International (DFL) represents 820 doctors, specialists and professors of medicine from different medical faculties across South Africa.