Proposed law wants religious hospitals to perform abortions, provide contraceptives

Some of Victoria’s religious public hospitals refuse to perform abortions or offer contraceptives — but that could soon change.

Publicly funded religious hospitals in Victoria would no longer be legally able to refuse abortions under proposed new laws that would “protect and extend fundamental human rights”.

Reason Party leader Fiona Patten will this week introduce a health legislation amendment Bill into parliament in a bid to ensure that no denominational hospital actively refuses to give a woman an abortion or contraceptive treatment.

Under the laws, hospitals that receive any taxpayer funding would be required to offer the services.

The proposed changes would also extend to providing end-of-life treatments for terminally ill patients who wish to die.

Fiona Patten is pushing for a Bill that would make it illegal for publicly funded religious hospitals to refuse abortions. Picture: David Crosling

The Royal Women’s Hospital is the only hospital in Melbourne’s CBD to perform abortions, while in the suburbs, the Northern, Austin and Monash offer the services.

Ms Patten said while it was her hope for every Victorian public hospital to offer abortion, this legislation is targeted at denominational hospitals – otherwise known as religious-based public hospitals like those in Werribee and Heidelberg, which operate under the Mercy Health banner – that refuse to carry out the procedures entirely.

Mercy Health’s website states: “As a Catholic provider of care we value the dignity of life from conception to death … For moral reasons, we do not provide some services: being women’s health and end of life care.”

Ms Patten said: “The reliance of some institutions on the false construct of institutional conscientious objection has no rational, legal, or moral basis.”

The Royal Women’s Hospital is the only hospital in Melbourne’s CBD to perform abortions. Picture: David Crosling

The Bill states a denominational hospital that provides gynaecological, obstetrics or neonatal services must provide contraception, the supply of contraceptives, and medical and surgical abortions.

Ms Patten said this change would “protect and extend fundamental human rights currently being denied in public hospitals”.

“It protects and insists upon the rights of patients in the public health system, for they should not have to depend on their postcode for access to the full panoply of public health services,” she said.

“The health system is mistreating those who fund it. This legislation is about universal, secular rights. Religion is a blessing to many amid the mysteries and vagaries of existence, but imposed religious faith has no place in the public health system.

“Publicly funded hospitals and other health institutions have no right to refuse these legally enshrined rights that a woman has control over her body and reproductive health and that some terminally ill people have access to assisted dying.”

Melburnians recently protesteed against American’s overturning of the Roe vs. Wade decision. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascu

The Bill would also restrict organisations from directing employees to refuse to provide advice or services.

However, medical staff employed at such facilities could still refuse treatments on the grounds of “conscientious objection”.

It would also not impact the private system, where Ms Patten says people “have choice over service providers”.

It comes a month after the United States Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision, declaring the constitutional right to abortion no longer exists for American women.

A spokesman from Mercy Health, which runs Werribee Mercy and Heidelberg Mercy, said it had not yet seen Ms Patten’s private members Bill.

“Consistent with the Catholic ethic of care, Mercy Health provides clear advice to patients on the services it provides,” he said.