Pregnancy Termination Policies in Community Hospitals

Many community hospitals with religious historical foundations hold strict policies against pregnancy termination. Prenatal detection of severe malformations and/or genetic disorders in the fetus provides opportunity for choices regarding the continuation or termination of pregnancy, posing quandaries. Patients often must travel significant distances and meet entirely new health care providers at a juncture when emotion and anxiety levels are high. We present a policy, in a religiously based community hospital, designed to allow termination of pregnancies in which lethal conditions have been detected by prenatal testing. We describe the process by which a multidisciplinary committee worked through ethical, moral, social and religious issues to craft a document which was perceived as acceptable within the context of the hospital tradition while also meeting patient needs.