Doctors vote against telling patients their beliefs on controversial issues

Doctors voted today to keep their views on abortion secret from patients.

They rejected the idea that doctors should distribute leaflets to patients or put posters up in the surgery to warn patients if they have a conscientious objection.

Liberal Democrat Dr Evan Harris, who is also a doctor, had sought to persuade the British Medical Association's annual meeting of the need for a 'public health' warning about contentious beliefs.

He said there was legal protection supporting the rights of doctors to conscientiously object to abortion and IVF treatment.

Doctors' views on whether it was permissible to withhold treatment from terminally ill patients was also a matter of personal conscience, he argued.

But if the field of issues was widened to include contraception or the morning after pill, it would be dangerous for patients.

He said 'We cannot afford to have a pick and mix Health Service.'

However, Dr David Randall said he was concerned that doctors would be able to exercise their conscience only where the law said they could specifically object.

He rejected the notion that doctors who opposed abortion, for example, would fail to refer patients for treatment because of their personal views.

'This is dangerous, damaging and divisive' he claimed.

Guidance from the General Medical Council issued earlier this year advises doctors to make every effort to tell patients that they have a right to see another doctor in cases of conscientious objection.

But the BMA meeting rejected by 3:1 the proposals that such views should be publicised in advance to patients by means of practice leaflets or posters.