DOCTORS IN Ireland who follow their conscience could lose their right to practise medicine, a prominent Catholic theologian has claimed.
He also said that doctors who refused to co-operate "in immoral actions according to Catholic medical ethics can be disciplined by the Medical Council for professional misconduct and ultimately lose the right to practise medicine in Ireland if he continues to follow his conscience."
Fr Vincent Twomey, former professor of moral theology at Maynooth, said that to expect Catholic doctors with conscientious objections to a course of action to refer patients to doctors with no such objections is to make "a mockery of the notion of conscientious objection".
Writing an editorial in the current edition of The Word magazine, he noted that the Medical Council of Ireland's guidelines concerning conscientious objection stated that "if a doctor has a conscientious objection to a course of action this should be explained and the names of other doctors made available to the patient".
He took this to mean that "that the doctor should give the names of other doctors who would supply the 'treatment' which, on conscientious grounds, the first doctor could not prescribe.
"But this is a mockery of the notion of conscientious objection."
He said that "referral is co-operation in an immoral act and the referring physician ultimately helps to achieve the immoral end."
Today it seemed many GPs and obstetricians in Ireland prescribed the morning after pill, even though this was in conflict with Catholic medical ethics, he said.