Article content continued

Women have the right to get an abortion without the opinion of a third party, Robert said. “And at any stage of the pregnancy.”

Requests for late-term abortions are rare, he added, but seem to provoke an emotional and moral response, which is why the College is updating its guidelines.

“We feel we need to provide a framework for best clinical care,” Robert said.

According to Montreal’s Le Devoir newspaper, which first reported the story, the woman was 30 weeks pregnant when tests showed malformations with the fetus.

The woman and her partner made the decision to seek an abortion together.

Can you imagine what it’s like for a woman, 30 weeks pregnant, to have to seek a lawyer to end her pregnancy? Awful

“I didn’t want my child to suffer their whole life,” she said.

According to ultrasound tests, the fetus appeared to have physical abnormalities that were not life-threatening to the mother or the baby, said patients’ rights advocate and lawyer Jean-Pierre Ménard.

“She didn’t want her child to suffer the consequences of being physically different,” Ménard said.

The woman, who was being followed at the MUHC, requested to end her pregnancy. When the MUHC refused, Ménard advised her to go to another hospital rather than mount a court case. She was also refused an abortion at Ste-Justine-Hospital for children. Ste-Justine officials would not confirm that when contacted by the Montreal Gazette.

The woman had the abortion at 35 weeks at a third Montreal hospital that Ménard would not name.

“McGill relied on an ethics committee and the College guidelines; Ste-Justine has the same politics, and that must stop now,” said Ménard, who fired off a six-page letter to the Quebec College of Physicians on Dec. 5 demanding an immediate update to their guidelines, which he contends fail to conform to Canadian and Quebec law.