Catholic nurses reject spy' jibe

by Christopher Howse CATHOLIC nurses this week indignantly denied accusations that they are acting as spies on doctors who performed abortions.
The accusation came from a committee member of the British Medical Association. Dr Alexander Macara, chairman of the BMA's ethical committee said that medical colleagues were being invited to act as spies against each other by antiabortion groups.
A spokesman for the Catholic Nurses Guild said this week that it did not encourage nurses to spy. But nurses were responsible for looking after souls as well as bodies, and there had to be a great respect for the sanctity of life.
Mrs Nuala Scarisbrick of Life, which has reported some 24 incidents involving abortions or young babies to the police, said: "We have always preferred nurses to go through hospital authorities if they think they have seen something illegal. But anyone working in hospital is accountable to the community and is obliged to obey the law as we all are."
Life has more then 3,000 doctors and nurses among its members. A doctor in Derby was found innocent of attempted murder last year after the Director of Public Prosecutions had given the go-ahead for a trial after Life passed on complaints that a baby had been left to die.
But Life insists that accusations of spying are standing reality on its head. It is a clear duty of any citizen not to conceal a serious crime. "We are trying to nail the idea that we are encouraging people to sneak about something like smoking in the dorm," said Mrs Scarisbrick. "We're not; it's a matter of
apparent breaking of the law." Three of the Life complaints followed television programmes on which consultant paediatricians admitted that they were quietly sedating handicapped babies until they died.
Life is issuing a revised edition of its leaflet for nurses in September. Once it was only a question of nurses using the conscience clause of the 1967 Abortion Act to avoid taking part in abortion operations. Now there are the complications of neo-natal non-treatment of the handicapped and ante-natal tests resulting in abortion.
The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children has its own new leaflet of advice to nurses, currently being circulated to local branches.
The leaflet urges nurses to join the medical and nursing division of Spuc. It says "Spuc will help you all the way if you are pressurised against your wishes to become involved in abortion. Spuc will undertake legal procedures."
The leaflet outlines a case in Coventry where a nurse was threatened with dismissal for refusing to take part in an antenatal test for Down's Syndrome, where an abortion would he offered if handicap were detected. The threat was withdrawn after Spuc obtained legal opinion that her case fell under the conscience exemption clause.
The Spuc leaflet does not encourage nurses to look out for illegalities. Its aim is to support nurses who are often frightened for their future if they stand out. Support is also the aim of the Catholic Nurses' Guild, whose national chaplain, Fr Thomas Nulty this week said it was a pity that many good Catholic nurses in total sympathy with the guild should still not have joined.