Morgentaler Clinic Guilty of Negligence

Henry Morgentaler, with his string of eight abortion clinics across Canada, is making huge profits by destroying the lives of pre-born babies and, it appears, by also harming some of their mothers in the process.

Certainly Morgentaler's callous, assembly-line procedures have been fully exposed during his many court appearances in the 1970's and 1980's. According to evidence submitted in these cases, Morgentaler provides little pre- or post-abortion care to his patients.

For example, Mr. Justice Crete of the Quebec Court of Appeal described Morgentaler's abortion procedures as follows:

... Morgentaler talked to the patient for about five minutes, during which time he only discussed the financial arrangements, the stage of pregnancy and whether it was a first pregnancy. It seemed equally clear that there was no question of a urine or blood test, nor of taking the patient's blood pressure, pulse or temperature.

Morgentaler, himself, admitted his inadequate post-abortion care, in an article he wrote for the Canadian Medical Association Journal (December 15, 1973), where he stated:

She is kept under observation for an average of thirty minutes and leaves the clinic when ambulatory.

Not surprisingly, in 1976, the Disciplinary Committee of the Professional Corp. of Physicians of Quebec suspended Morgentaler's licence to practice medicine for one year for his failure to practice good medicine and recommended that he follow a course of "further training". The Disciplinary Committee findings of fact included the following:

a) An attitude which is primarily directed to protecting his fees. No really valid interview is held before proceeding with the abortion. This behaviour confers a mercenary character on the doctor-patient relationship. This committee is incapable of reconciling this behaviour with the humanitarian concern that the accused invoked throughout his defence.

b) The committee also deplores the almost complete lack of a case history, as well as the failure to perform the necessary scientific tests before proceeding with the surgical act: pregnancy test, blood test.

c) After performing his interventions, the defendant does not concern himself with obtaining a pathological examination of the tissues he has removed, nor does he follow up the state of health of his patients after having performed the operation.

These factors reveal a medical practice which this committee cannot reconcile with the practice of good medicine. For all of these reasons, the committee must reprimand the defendant.

Since that time, Morgentaler has avoided legal run-ins with his patients over his failure to provide adequate medical care by offering generous settlements to those patients who have brought complaints against him, on the condition that they remain publicly silent about any alleged incompetency on his part.

This has generally protected Morgentaler -- up until now, that is.

In February of this year, however, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court found the Morgentaler Clinic in Halifax guilty of negligence in failing to provide a patient with adequate post-abortion care. As a result, Morgentaler was assessed $724,547.66 in damages.

This case arose in regard to an abortion performed in 1993, in Morgentaler's Halifax clinic, on a patient who underwent an abortion with local anaesthetic in her cervix. The court found that after the abortion, the patient was "emotionally very shaky" and experienced pain in the pelvic area. Notwithstanding this, after 30 to 45 minutes, the patient was permitted to leave the clinic, walk to her car and drive off. According to the court, the emotional turmoil resulting from the abortion caused the patient to faint and then swerve into oncoming traffic. Mr. Justice Douglas MacLellan found that fainting is often caused by emotional stress and that, as a result of an abortion, fainting might occur up to 12 hours after the procedure is performed. He concluded that the clinic failed to protect the patient from harm by permitting her to drive off so soon after the abortion.

We hope that other women will come forward with their complaints/charges and resist Morgentaler's generous offers to settle. We also hope that women will be duly warned of the dangers inherent in abortion procedures.

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