BY MARY MERKENICH
The Victorian state coroner has been asked to investigate the case of a Melbourne woman whose pregnancy was terminated at 32 weeks after she learned that her child was likely to be a dwarf. The Royal Women's Hospital has suspended three senior medical staff involved and set up an internal inquiry after referring the matter to the coroner on July 1.
According to reports, the woman concerned was extremely distressed, to the point of being suicidal, and demanded the abortion. While not all the facts are known, the media have sensationalised the case and are already drawing their own biased conclusions.
Surveys have been quoted about doctors' attitudes to abortion at different stages of pregnancy and comment pieces have been solicited, almost all agitating against abortion and women's right to control their own bodies.
Ethicists have referred to the "dilemma" doctors and society face when confronted by such a case and have called for the establishment of clinical ethics committees to assist doctors in making these "agonising but inescapable decisions".
Despite warnings by some, including Melbourne University ethicist Dr Lynn Gillam, not to make judgments, there have been plenty of people willing to do so. Gillam's colleague Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, for example, wrote to the July 4 Melbourne Age claiming, "There is no medical evidence to show that late-term abortion is a remedy for mental illness or a suicidal state of mind. In fact the opposite is the case."
Ruminating on the abstract "ethical" questions, the woman's own opinion disappeared from view, as did the possible effect on her and her family of the media sensationalism.
The underlying assumption is that the woman concerned cannot be relied upon to make the correct decision about her life, well-being and future. No, women need doctors and, now, special ethical committees to decide their futures. It is doctors, and society, which are the "interested parties"; women are simply the incubators.
For supporters of women's liberation, women's right to choose is the central issue. The July 4 Age editorial comes to an opposite, ominous conclusion: "The fundamental issue is that we would not kill a newborn baby, even to save the mother's mental or physical health. That is why, however tragic the circumstances, so late a termination of pregnancy cannot be condoned."
Yet if "society" is so concerned about foetuses and late-term abortions for "ethical" reasons, why does its concern stop after birth? Why, for example, are we not doing much, much more to assist families with children who have disabilities? Does a foetus count for more than a living woman or a living child?
A representative of a support group for people of short stature was quoted that it was a matter of concern if unborn babies were being terminated simply because they suffered dwarfism. In the hands of the editorialists and "ethicists", this implied discrimination against people with disabilities and became something with which to undermine support for a woman's right to choose.
I have never had to face the prospect of having a baby with a disability and cannot imagine what the emotions or thoughts of prospective parents in such circumstances are. I will not make a judgment about their personal decisions. I do, however, make a judgment about a society which relentlessly advocates the perfect form for us to aspire to and fosters Nazi-like attitudes to people with disabilities. That's what needs to eradicated, not women's right to choose.