Cardinal awaits study on doctors' activities at Catholic hospital

Published: 2006-02-09

LONDON (CNS) -- An independent study will advise a British cardinal that doctors with offices in a Catholic hospital should stop referring patients for abortions and prescribing the morning-after pill. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster, England, will be told in the confidential report that the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth is infringing on its code of ethics by allowing doctors' general practices to do such abortion work out of hospital premises in north London. Under their health service contracts, doctors are obliged to prescribe contraceptives and, even if they have a moral objection to abortion, they must refer women to doctors who will write the prescriptions. In August, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor asked Lord Brennan, a Catholic politician, to conduct the study to determine whether referrals for abortion contravened the hospital's code of ethics, which states that "no person may use the hospital facilities for any consultation, operation, procedure, treatment and research which is clearly inconsistent with the ethical policy and accepted practices of the hospital." Sources close to the hospital told Catholic News Service Feb. 8 that Lord Brennan will tell the cardinal in his interim report, which will not be made public, that the code has been transgressed and the practices must stop.

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