{"id":98824,"date":"2016-08-08T20:21:58","date_gmt":"2016-08-09T00:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=98824"},"modified":"2016-08-08T21:15:25","modified_gmt":"2016-08-09T01:15:25","slug":"jewish-hospital-refuses-abort-healthy-twin-selective-reduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/jewish-hospital-refuses-abort-healthy-twin-selective-reduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewish hospital refuses to abort healthy twin baby in a ‘selective reduction’"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

(LifeSiteNews)<\/a> \u2014 An Ottawa-area woman is appealing an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruling that Mount Sinai Hospital did not discriminate against her when it refused last May to abort one of her healthy twins.<\/p>\n

OHRT adjudicator Brian Cook ruled July 18<\/a> that Mount Sinai Hospital\u2019s decision to refuse a 45-year-old woman, referred to only as C.V., a \u201cselective reduction\u201d abortion was medically based and did not constitute discrimination.<\/p>\n

\u201cA doctor is not required to perform a procedure that the doctor believes is not medically appropriate,\u201d he wrote in his judgment.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Toronto hospital has contended that its refusal hinged on \u201cthe conscience of the clinicians,\u201d but has since produced a policy asserting that \u201cthe ethical principle of patient autonomy must be given primacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook wrote that Mount Sinai regards this statement as no different from its previous unwritten policy, but the policy does require a conscientiously objecting physician to provide an effective referral.<\/p>\n

Mount Sinai did not respond to calls from LifeSiteNews by deadline.<\/p>\n

C.V.’s lawyer Amir Attaran told the National Post<\/em><\/a> his client is contesting the OHRT decision, and may ultimately go to court for a judicial review.<\/p>\n

C.V., who became pregnant through IVF, \u201cdecided she did not want to have twins\u201d and was referred to Mount Sinai for a \u201cfetal reduction\u201d in May 2015, Cook wrote.<\/p>\n

According to the Post<\/em>, C.V.\u2019s obstetrician predicted she was \u201ceight times more likely to lose the whole pregnancy if she carried both fetuses to term.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, a Mount Sinai obstetrician stated that the hospital would not do the \u201creduction\u201d because the twins were healthy.<\/p>\n

(In a selective reduction abortion, a needle is inserted into the mother\u2019s womb through her abdomen, guided by ultrasound, and the selected baby, usually the smallest one, is killed by an injection of potassium chloride, which stops the child’s heart.)<\/p>\n

At that time, Mount Sinai\u2019s unwritten \u201cmultidisciplinary consensus policy based on medical risk determinations\u201d was to abort one child in the case of triplets \u201cbecause of the increased risks associated with triplets,\u201d and, in the case of twins, to abort a child with abnormalities \u2014 but not when there is \u201cno fetal abnormality,\u201d Cook wrote.<\/p>\n

The \u201cconsensus policy\u201d also allowed aborting both twins, which it viewed as \u201cessentially the same as [a] request for an abortion by a woman pregnant with a singleton,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Two days after Mount Sinai refused C.V.\u2019s request in a brief email which concluded that \u201cthere are centers in the U.S. that will do this but we do not,\u201d Attaran filed a complaint with the OHRT.<\/p>\n

A professor in the Faculties of Law and Medicine at the University of Ottawa, and Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health and Global Development Policy, Attaran took on the case pro bono.<\/p>\n

C.V., who has an older child also conceived through IVF, told the Post <\/em>that after she filed her complaint, Mount Sinai referred her to Toronto\u2019s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, which aborted one of the twins.<\/p>\n

Her lawyer obtained the hospital\u2019s current policy through an Access of Information request. Attaran told the Post that Mount Sinai\u2019s lawyers told him that \u201cwe don\u2019t want to be known as a hospital that does abortions,\u201d and that C.V. then refused the hospital\u2019s offer to settle for $55,000.<\/p>\n

Attaran told LifeSiteNews in an email that his client \u201cis motivated by health reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand LifeSiteNews is a religiously-motivated publication and ideological in a Christian sense,\u201d he added. \u201cYour religious ideology is of no concern to my client, as her reproductive choices should be no concern of yours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a reproductive choice, it\u2019s a human baby,\u201d countered Mary Ellen Douglas, national organizer for Campaign Life Coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case points out how little respect there is for life of any kind in the womb,\u201d she told LifeSiteNews.<\/p>\n

\u201cChoosing first of all to have a baby by in vitro, secondly, to decide, well, gee, I\u2019d like this one and not that one \u2026 and I don\u2019t want anybody to tell me there\u2019s anything the matter with doing this,\u201d Douglas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s she going to say to that child that survives? This is how badly we have degenerated in terms of any kind morality in regard to the womb.\u201d<\/p>\n

This \u201creverse of Solomon\u2019s wisdom\u201d also underscores the urgent need \u201cfor a law in the country that protects the unborn child the womb the way it should,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cIt\u2019s a wonder anyone survives the womb. It\u2019s the most dangerous place in the world to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so painfully sad,\u201dAndrea Mrozek, director of the Ottawa-based think-tankCardus Family<\/a>, told LifeSiteNews.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt used to be that we would look upon the IVF technology as being an aid in the creation of this miracle, but now I wonder whether it hasn\u2019t just basically made the creation of a new life into a run-of-the-mill science experiment. \u2026 Does nobody have a sense of awe or wonder anymore?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot and never will begin to understand how it is that a woman who wanted children badly enough to subject her body to IVF treatments, gets pregnant, and then goes for abortion,\u201d Mrozek wrote on her blog at ProWomanProLife<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Post <\/em>reported in 2010 that requests for selective reduction abortions<\/a>\u00a0of one child of twins for socio-economic reasons was on the rise.<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared at LifeSite News<\/a>, and is reprinted here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(LifeSiteNews) \u2014 An Ottawa-area woman is appealing an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruling that Mount Sinai Hospital did not discriminate against her when it refused last May to abort one of her healthy twins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":414,"featured_media":98825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nJewish hospital refuses to abort healthy twin baby in 'selective reduction'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An Ottawa-area woman is appealing a ruling that Mount Sinai Hospital did not discriminate when it refused last May to abort one of her healthy twins.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/jewish-hospital-refuses-abort-healthy-twin-selective-reduction\/\" 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