Abortion not as safe are as women being told
CANBERRA SUNDAY TIMES 15 November, 1998, Page 7
Melinda Tankard Reist says gynaecologists are failing in their duty of care to patients.
BEFORE Members of the ACT Legislative Assembly vote down the informed-consent provisions of the Health Regulation (Abortions) Bill, they might want to give some thought to "Ellen".
Ellen won a settlement from a hospital and a Melbourne gynaecologist for the psychological harm she suffered after an abortion in 1990: harm she was not warned about. The action set a legal landmark.
What happened to Ellen highlights the shoddy counselling procedures, lack of informed consent, failure to disclose risks and failure of the duty of care which almost 300 women — including a number from Canberra — have told me for inclusion in a book I’m writing on the subject. Ellen was the first to contact me.
She was "counselled" by a student social worker who gave her a brochure on the safety of the procedure. "It gave me a false sense of security by stating medical and psychological complications were almost nonexistent," she says.
Two days after the termination, she experienced labour pains and, to her horror, expelled a foetus into the toilet bowl. "I ... felt overwhelmed by sadness and motherly instinct as I looked at this baby’s face and felt shock that I had ignorantly consented to kill this beautiful little human — ‘my baby’. I had no idea it was so advanced, always hearing it described as a small mass of tissue," she says. She took the foetus to the hospital. Staff told her it was "placental".
Shortly afterwards Ellen went to the hospital’s social-work department seeking counselling. She was told the hospital was not obliged to help and was advised not to seek counselling. If she wanted to know more, she could go to the library. Ellen spiralled into depression and felt she was having a nervous breakdown. Her husband left his job to care for her full-time.
Two other women say they suffered a similar ordeal after an abortion at the same hospital — one did not know till she went into labour after the abortion that she was carrying twins.
A number of contributors to my book are pursuing or considering legal action for the physical and psychological harm suffered after an abortion.
Contrary to popular opinion the maiming of women did not cease with the advent of "safe legal abortion" - But present-day abortion-related harm gets little attention.
On December 20, 1989, Ms B, then 17, of Sydney, underwent a mid trimester abortion at a Sydney clinic, suffered a lacerated cervix, lost a litre of blood, almost died and had to be resuscitated. The Professional Standards Committee of the NSW Medical Board’s found, "Ms B denied being informed of any complications of the procedure."
On February 21, 1991, Mrs M was admitted to Sydney Hospital in a coma as a result of complications during an abortion at the same clinic. She suffered severe brain injury which left her physically and mentally incapacitated, requiring full-time physical care.
In September 1993, the Professional Standards Committee found a Dr N guilty of professional misconduct by over both these abortions.
Mrs M’s claim for damages was settled for $3.7 million in April last year. In June this year, Justice Rolfe ordered damages of $455,170 for nervous shock to her husband.
The Professional Standards Committee placed some conditions on Dr N’s practice, but he was not prevented from carrying out abortions.
A 21-year-old Chinese woman is in a persistent vegetative state in a Queensland nursing home after her 1994 abortion. And a 17-year-old Aboriginal girl from northern NSW is dead.
Short suspension
The Queensland Medical Assessment Tribunal found a Brisbane abortionist, Dr B, guilty of professional misconduct this year in the case of the 21-year-old. The tribunal head, Justice George Fryberg, said Dr A’s negligence was "gross, perhaps even criminal". B is back on the job after a three-month suspension.
Dr B was also investigated by the homicide squad after the Aboriginal girl from Boggabilla suffered a cardiac arrest and died four years ago. A post-mortem found the cause of death was "septic abortion".
The brochure supplied by the largest abortion clinic in NSW, Preterm, states, "The scare stories about abortion being dangerous to women come from the time when it was illegal, when there were no antibiotics, and before the suction method was introduced " Preterm is being sued for damage by at least one patient.
Sydney abortionist Dr G said in this paper. in September that the medical and psychological risks involved in a termination were "being overstated".
A woman brain-damaged in an abortion at his clinic is about to take him to court.
Huge- damages have been awarded by the NSW Supreme Court in recent years in cases involving women irreparably injured after abortions.
Left spastic
A woman known as C in a case against Dr P and St George Hospital suffered complications after an induced abortion when she was four months pregnant. The induction process was prolonged and the plaintiff suffered an epileptic fit. The ventilator supplying oxygen to her was apparently accidentally turned off, resulting in gross brain damage. She was left grossly spastic, suffering muscular spasms causing involuntary movement of her limbs and body. In August 1993 she was awarded damages of $2,261,361 plus costs.
Mrs G, having been told she had suffered an incomplete miscarriage, underwent an abortion by a general surgeon. The abortion failed and a baby girl was born alive, suffering multiple deformities found to have been caused by the abortion procedure. In December 1994 Justice Badgery-Parker awarded more than $2 million in damages to the girl and her parents.
Ellen’s legal action for "deep and profound nervous shock" is believed to be the first involving abortion-related psychological damage, and will be followed by similar actions by other women. Abortion was, for them, an irreversible act chosen without sufficient knowledge. Counselling was token or non-existent, risks given little attention.
The 1992 High Court found in Rogers v Whitaker that a doctor had a duty to warn a patient of material risks, particularly those a reasonable doctor would disclose, or those the doctor could reasonably be expected to know would be significant for the patient. The provision of abortion should not be exempt from this ruling. The "right to choose" must include the right to know.
Melinda Tankard Reist is a freelance writer with a special Interest in women’s health, bioethics, reproductive technologies and human rights.