The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists will remind healthcare workers of their duty to maintain patient confidentiality in new guidance, which is yet to be published.
Medics should not report suspected cases of illegal abortion to the police, leading women’s doctors are set to say.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) is expected to publish new guidance that it is “never” in the public interest to share information about suspected illegal abortions.
It comes after high-profile prosecutions, including that of Bethany Cox, who was accused of using poison for an at-home abortion in 2020.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) is expected to publish new guidance that it is “never” in the public interest to share information about suspected illegal abortions.
Meanwhile, Carla Foster was jailed last year for illegally obtaining abortion tablets to end her pregnancy - but her sentence was reduced on appeal.
“We firmly believe it is never in the public interest to investigate and prosecute women who have sought to end their own pregnancy,” RCOG president Dr Ranee Thakar said.
“Outdated, antiquated abortion laws mean women who have experienced unexplained pregnancy loss are also vulnerable to criminal investigation, and health professionals are placed under unacceptable and unwarranted scrutiny.”
Healthcare workers must also abide by their “professional responsibility to justify any disclosure of confidential patient information or face potential fitness to practise proceedings”, the college added.
A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said they “carefully consider” personal circumstances of those who end their pregnancy outside the legal parameters and “address these as sensitively as possible”.
The original article contains 503 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 67%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Seems sensible enough. Medical staff is not law enforcement. If the powers-that-be want a shitty law enforced they should have to be the ones to enforce it. By making it a rule that there is a duty to NOT report medical staff can always refer to that rule if they are getting pressured.
For me it should be treated the same way if someone showed up clearly after drunk driving and had an accident. The same way if a doctor suspected of anything illegal in his patients. Idk how it’s handled legally, but it should be consistent
that varies across the countries. where I live, a doctor must not reveal anything the patient has told them during a visit/medical procedure/etc., with the only exception being when there’s a risk of a future harm. so a doctor can’t report the patient has admitted to having murdered someone, but should report if they say they’re about to.
For the United States, it’s not even just some risk of future harm. The standard is much stricter, it’s if “a provider determines that there is a serious and imminent threat of a patient physically harming self or others.” Has to be something very specific and imminent for confidentiality to be breached.
There are a few more edge cases though, for instance doctors and other healthcare workers are usually mandatory reporters by law, so if they suspect child abuse they are legally obligated to report it. Another one is for infectious disease tracking and reporting, there may also be confidentiality exceptions.
if “a provider determines that there is a serious and imminent threat of a patient physically harming self or others”
yeah, pretty much the same, I’m just not that eloquent in English :P
there’s a similar clause with some infectious diseases if I remember correctly, and I’m honestly not sure how’s the suspected child abuse handled, but probably the same.
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The only thing I said, is that such a situation should be handled exactly like any other situation, in whatever way the law mandates. The only thing I expressed was support for the rule of law. If that law has to be changed is another discussion, but until then, it must be respected.
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I tend to be more of a “nothing” absolutist. Even human rights are not absolute, as we saw during the covid pandemic, when most of us gave up somewhat willingly our freedom of circulation. Mask mandates were another example.
I tend to prefer to preserve the rule of law, because if civil desobedience to several laws becomes the norm (and those laws are not retracted), then all you are left with is either anarchy, with total disregard for such laws, or a despotic government that applies them as it sees fit (example: China. You kinda have to be corrupt to some level to do any amount of large business in there, but the hammer of justice conspicuously falls only on the “enemies” of the regime.
Even during normal times, things like abortion must not be handled lightly and the different rights at play must be taken into account, both of the women and the child involved. I tend to side with the child, although contrary to nutty Republicans I both believe in and live in a country where paid maternity leave is a thing, daycare is free for a reasonable chunk of the population (general availability coming soontm ) and we have a national health system. As such, given that most of the population is educated, that contraception is easily accessible (and free if you go to your family doctor) as well as pregnancy tests, it becomes inexcusable to have an abortion, especially one that violates the generous terms of our law.
