ABORTION groups are launching a campaign to name doctors who refuse to help women seeking terminations. Marie Stopes International, Britain’s largest chain of abortion clinics outside the National Health Service, wants lists displayed in GP surgeries stating whether individual doctors are prepared to refer women for the procedure, writes Sarah-Kate Templeton.

In an even more aggressive move, patients are being urged to report to the General Medical Council (GMC) doctors who refuse to play any role in terminations.

Professor Wendy Savage, a former consultant gynaecologist at Barts and the London NHS Trust, and spokeswoman for Doctors for a Woman’s Choice on Abortion, announced the tactics at a meeting of abortion groups last week.

“A doctor who has a conscientious objection to abortion must refer a patient on to another doctor,” she said. “Any woman who is told by her GP that she is not going to be referred to a colleague should report that doctor to the GMC. The GMC would take this very seriously. It should be regarded as serious professional misconduct.”

Some pro-choice campaigners allege that some doctors delay decisions on terminations in the knowledge that an abortion is illegal after 24 weeks.

Pro-choice and pro-life groups are intensifying their campaigns in anticipation of a parliamentary debate on whether the upper limit for abortions for social reasons should be lowered to about 20 weeks as medical advances enable premature babies born at 23 and 24 weeks to survive.

This Tuesday, Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP, will call for the government to set up an inquiry into whether the upper abortion limit should be lowered to 22 weeks.

In a Commons debate, he will argue there is evidence that the age of viability of the foetus could have changed because premature babies now survive at just 23 weeks gestation.

The drive to report uncooperative doctors to the disciplinary body is being backed by another lobby group, Abortion Rights. It is advising patients to complain if they believe a doctor is deliberately delaying.

Anne Quesney, director of Abortion Rights, said: “Women do not lodge complaints against their GP. This is something we want to encourage.”

Last week Marie Stopes published research that claimed some “obstructive medical practitioners” were deliberately preventing women from having abortions.

GMC guidelines state that doctors with a conscientious objection to abortions should explain this to patients and tell them they have a right to see another doctor.

Dr Peter Saunders, general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said many GPs opposed to abortion resisted attempts to force them to refer women to doctors who are in favour, to avoid feeling complicit in abortion. GPs referred to the GMC would defend themselves strongly, he said.

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