Professional Misconduct: The Invercargill Abortion, 1985
Professional Misconduct: The Invercargill Abortion, 1985
In February 1986 the Southland Times reported that the Southland Hospital Board had dismissed the paediatrician, John McArthur. No reason was given. The Invercargill Police then announced that three months earlier McArthur had complained to them about the abortion at seven months of pregnancy and the subsequent lethal abandonment of a liveborn, viable boy, disabled by a spina bifida deformity.
Early in their investigation the Police at their National Headquarters in Wellington were wrongly advised when a local pathologist doubted the boy’s viability and said that a paediatrician’s opinion was not required. No charges were brought against any doctor.
This is a story of a frighteningly powerful medical profession which misinformed a criminal enquiry, closed its ranks against the employment of the whistleblowing paediatrician and scapegoated him for the obstetric mayhem inflicted on a woman and her son.
Professional misconduct indeed!
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About the Author:
John McArthur was born in Blenheim, New Zealand in 1947 and educated at Nelson College, gaining a University Junior Scholarship in 1964. After graduating in medicine from the University of Otago in 1970, he worked for a year as a junior medical officer at Southland Hospital, lnvercargill. He then trained in paediatric medicine for three years in Cleveland, USA and for two years in Toronto, Canada. Returning to lnvercargill as a paediatrician in 1977 he developed neonatal intensive care at Southland Hospital and took a special interest in the disabled. After the “lnvercargill abortion” he moved to Porirua where he was employed as a paediatrician at Kenepuru Hospital and at Puketiro Centre. He became responsible for the medical care of the 30 young, profoundly disabled residents of the psycho-paedic unit, Kowhai Villa, attached to Puketiro Centre. In 2000 he was employed as a general paediatrician at Wellington Hospital, retiring in 2014.
He holds the Diploma of the American Board of Pediatrics and the Specialist Certificate in Paediatrics of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
In 2016 he graduated Bachelor of Arts from Massey University with a double major in Classical Studies and History.