Trainee midwife suspended over anti-abortion views
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20d12lr7p4o.amp
Posted by A_Crazy_crew
Trainee midwife suspended over anti-abortion views
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20d12lr7p4o.amp
Posted by A_Crazy_crew
16 Comments
> The mother-of-three, who is a US citizen, wants health boards to be more aware of freedom of speech rights.
What is the chance that she has been sent over to deliberately try to stir shit up?
A total non story.
She made an inflammatory comment on social media, was investigated and cleared. She’s come to a country where abortion is a right that is embedded in law and if she doesn’t like that, she can leave.
So she expressed some views that run counter to our rights in the UK, she was investigated to see if these views impacted her ability to do the job she was training for.
All seems quite fair; she does need to be mindful that her personal beliefs are irrelevant in providing care and that abortion is part of being a midwife.
[deleted]
The Article 10 right to freedom of speech is qualified by other people’s rights and freedoms – like the right of a pregnant person to make their own choice about a legal procedure and be supported by medical professionals whatever decision they make –
Ms Spencer has an absolute right to her belief that even medically necessary abortions are unacceptable.
**Expressing** that belief as she has makes her – in my opinion – unfit to practice as a midwife and is in clear breach of the NMC code of conduct, which has some quite specific guidance about social media – [https://www.nmc.org.uk/standards/code/conscientious-objection-by-nurses-and-midwives/](https://www.nmc.org.uk/standards/code/conscientious-objection-by-nurses-and-midwives/)
She can believe what she likes, as can I, and as a regulated professional she must be aware that expression of a belief can on occasion lead to investigation to ensure it doesn’t prevent you doing your regulated job.
Well at least she is known now, patients can ask for a different midwife. She actually can’t have those views and be in that role. Midwives are as responsible for mother as they are baby.
I guess she worried about job security who isn’t in this economy.
The UK abortion laws contain a right to conscientious objection by medical staff. Even if abortion related work is part of midwifery an individual midwife is entitled to take no to part in it
It is precisely because we have these legal compromises which recognise the moral difficulties of abortion that we have not had the trouble caused by the winner-takes-all approach in the US
You’re allowed anti-abortion views, but when your views impact your treatment then that’s a professional problem
She can have an opinion but if it affects her ability to care and do her work then she shouldn’t be practicing here. That’s why she was investigated and that is completely reasonable.
If I were a patient and somehow saw her posts or became aware of her views, I’d be concerned and request another midwife if possible. It’s not due to her views as such, it’s because she said she is against all abortions, including, I assume, those carried our for _life-saving_ reasons.
HOWEVER – if I was her patient, and she would express her views during a medical appointment, I would make a complaint. Same if I wanted to know my options for termination, and she would refuse to discuss them.
Her personal views are her own, and she should be a professional at work.
Of course she’s a US citizen .
Even most British conservatives believe in the right to abortion. Americans can keep their outdated views way over that side of the water.
Why exactly are we giving visas out for trainee midwives?
My personal experience, with my wife of using both maternity and contraception clinics early in our marriage in North London some years ago is that there is a proliferation of practitioners who seemed to have strong, extreme and in some cases possibly fundamentalist views in the NHS and related services. I would warn fathers particularly to be very vigilant to extreme views of practitioners and midwifery seemed to be a case in point.
These immigrants from backward cultures need to get on board with our values or they should immediately be deported
Funny that no one else is saying this. Lads! Why do you care about immigration and values when the person is brown, Muslim and male but not when the person is white, Christian and female?