Australian doctors cleared in abortion case -- eventually

It was clear what the woman wanted. She was pregnant, and distressed to the point of being suicidal. She had learned that her baby would be born with dwarfism. She pleaded with the doctors at the Royal Women's Hospital to terminate the pregnancy. Lachlan de Crespigny and a handful of other doctors wanted to help her. So, on a Thursday afternoon in February 2000, they did as she asked. The role that Associate Professor de Crespigny played — injecting potassium chloride into the foetus's heart — took only a minute or two. But almost eight years on, a day can't go by without him reliving the ugly events that followed. "It was lifesaving," he says now of the procedure that he insists he had a moral obligation to perform. "If we didn't do it and the woman died we would have potentially been charged with manslaughter and gone to jail. So in a legal sense, you could argue that we were compelled to offer it."

He has not seen or spoken to the woman since. But he never conceived that his actions that day would have blown out into a bitter battle that dragged on for years in three courts, prolonging the agony of everyone involved, including investigations by the hospital, a coroner, the police and a medical board, each of which have cleared the doctors of any wrongdoing. The complicating factor that turned the woman's personal tragedy into a media circus was the fact that it occurred when she was 32 weeks pregnant.

Last week Professor de Crespigny returned to court. This time it was for the right to end his court-imposed silence. He hasn't been able to talk about the events of that day until now because his name and those of the other doctors involved in the case, together with the woman, who became known as Mrs X, were all suppressed by the courts. Last week, he applied through the Magistrates Court, Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal to have suppression orders that prohibited the publication of his name lifted so that he could speak out. The names of the other doctors and the woman remain suppressed.

Professor de Crespigny sought to out himself as one of the doctors involved in the case so that he could tell his story. He is still bitter about the way the Royal Women's Hospital administration treated him. And he is passionate about the need for abortion law changes to erase the uncertainty that is driving some doctors, including himself, to steer clear of abortions. But he is conscious of the fact that, in speaking out, he risks adding to the distress of the woman, the biggest victim of all. "I feel enormous compassion for her position," he says. "I don't know whether she would support me or not support me in doing this."

The years haven't taken the edge off his anger as he tells of the personal toll on him. There were times when he slumped into depression. "It just took over my life," he says. "It's better now in that I don't think about it all day every day, but I think about it a lot every day … I still wake up at night and I still lie awake thinking about it every night. It used to be for hours every night. But now I switch off and go back to sleep far more quickly."

Most of his anger is directed at the hospital. A few months after the woman's abortion, the hospital called a news conference to reveal the events that had transpired. Professor de Crespigny says the news conference was called after a number of doctors told hospital administration what had happened. He was sacked first, then suspended. Five other doctors were also suspended. The suspensions were soon lifted and the doctors were able to return to work. But, because of a feeling of being wronged at least in Professor de Crespigny's case, none of the doctors work at the hospital now. A hospital spokeswoman says the current board and administration has publicly expressed empathy and support for the doctors. She says the hospital has since improved its internal processes. The hospital says public attention of the case has caused the woman considerable distress.

Professor de Crespigny, an obstetrician who specialises in pre-natal diagnosis, is now in private practice. Eight years on, his blues eyes are still filled with sadness — not because he regrets helping the woman, but because of all the things that happened afterward. This includes the actions of Nationals-turned-Liberal senator Julian McGauran, who has been criticised for exploiting the woman by using her as a political pawn in his anti-abortion crusade. Senator McGauran complained about the case to the Medical Practitioners Board. The board decided to investigate. The hospital refused to release the woman's medical files and spent years in court fighting their release. They lost the fight last year. A few months later, the board investigated and the doctors were cleared. When asked about the role Senator McGauran played in prolonging the woman's suffering, he says simply: "I think there's a lot of crazy people in the world … There's a lot of people who behave in a peculiar way and you have to live with that."

He says the doctors were in no doubt they had to help the woman. They reasoned that the abortion was lifesaving, lawful and ethical. The woman's circumstances were dramatic and unusual. But he insists the abortion was performed with the approval of the then head of obstetrics. His appeals to the State Government to conduct an inquiry into the hospital's handling of the matter have been rejected. Health Minister Daniel Andrews' spokesman says there are "a range of protections afforded to medical practitioners under the Health Services Act and other avenues are available through the Ombudsman".

Professor de Crespigny says: "What's really worried me is that the messages from this case have been buried, and very deliberately buried, and that means that the harm just continues. Doctors have to put their own wellbeing before that of the patient, and that's a shocking situation. "That should be the last thing that happens but it has to happen here because no one knows the law and doctors have a right to protect themselves as well. But the patient is the loser. That's unacceptable." He says women are being neglected by abortion laws. Abortion remains in the Crimes Act, although Premier John Brumby has committed to a conscience vote on decriminalising abortion. Politicians, he says, should stay out of it entirely.

"In 30 years I have had zero patients who've come to me for an abortion late in pregnancy that hasn't been an agonising decision. They go through such heart-rending stuff to decide what to do." But the saddest story perhaps belongs to the woman whose experience was made public in the most horrible way.

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