A medical doctor has taken issue with a poll published in many newspapers claiming overwhelming support among GPs for the Govt’s proposal for a GP-led abortion regime. According to Dr Theresa Boyle, not only was the poll methodology “subject to bias rendering it dangerously unrepresentative”, but the result was also “completely inconsistent with the most recent positions taken by doctor representative groups”. As evidence she cited that in the run up to the 2013 abortion act that enabled abortion on the grounds of suicide, “every representative group for doctors emphatically rejected the notion that suicidality should ever be used as an indication for pregnancy termination”. This included a statement on behalf of psychiatrists that an overwhelming 90% of respondents signed that legislation to allow for abortion as a treatment for the threat of suicide had no basis in medical evidence. Similar objections were also raised by the Irish Medical Organisation, the Irish College of GPs, and the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. “The three doctor groups who all disagreed with using suicidality as an indication for terminating an unborn life are hardly likely to agree with abortion for any indication up to 12 weeks”, she said.

Dr Boyle also said this should not be surprising “since doctors generally don’t consider killing one of their patients to relieve the distress of another patient as one of their roles in society”, and she pointed to the deep unwillingness among doctors internationally to perform abortions. “This is equally true in countries which have legalised abortion: it is a deeply unpopular career and very few doctors want to perform abortions eg 7% of obsetrican-gynaecologists in the US perform even rare abortions in their practice”.