Revealed: the abortion advice that could put lives at risk - National News - Independent.ie
It has emerged in a an article in todays Irish Independent that illegal advice being given to women on abortion is seriously endangering their lives.
In some cases women were told to hide having an abortion from her GP:
In several instances, women were told to hide their abortions from their doctors, a course of action that could endanger life if post-surgery abortion complications remain undiagnosed.
A small percentage of women suffer perforation of the womb following terminations, which can remain undetected but can cause problems in later pregnancies.In another case women were told about importing illegal abortion pills from Northern Ireland, pills which if taken without medical supervision could cause the death of the women:Professor Sam Coulter Smith, the master of Dublin'sRotunda Hospital, has warned.
He said he was aware of cases where women have died because they did not tell their doctors they'd had a termination.
A qualified barrister who is also a medical doctor has described it as negligent and even possibly criminal:At the Tallaght and Cork branches of the IFPA, women were told how to get an abortion pill, which is illegal here, by smuggling it into the State through Northern Ireland.
The HSE has confirmed that crisis pregnancy counsellors should not provide information on how to get the abortion pill.
The pills induce an abortion by causing a miscarriage. They should only be taken under medical supervision because they can cause bleeding, severe infection or, in rare instances, death.
The silence on this from many of those campaigning for abortion on the grounds of women’s health issues is deafening. One has to wonder how this was allowed to happen and why it took an investigation by a pro-life group to expose it. It would seem that some of those giving this advice who one would presume are pro-choice (if they weren't it would be hard to envisage them giving such advice) were not taking the medical well being of the woman’s health into full account.Dr Simon Mills, a barrister and medical doctor, said: "It is definitely reckless and probably negligent advice to tell a woman to conceal from doctors something that may be a vital part of her medical history.
"This is especially the case if she presented unwell in the immediate aftermath of a termination and felt that she shouldn't tell her doctor about it when it could be the key piece of information to deliver prompt and life-saving treatment.
"If somebody turned around and said the reason I didn't tell my doctor was because a counsellor told me it wasn't necessary, civil liability would almost certainly arise and I think it is possible that criminal liability could too."