A pro-life doctor in South Africa is facing charges for telling a patient that an abortion kills a human being.
Jacque de Vos, 32, was completing his medical internship more than two years ago when the Health Professions Council of South Africa charged him with alleged medical misconduct.
The Herald Live reports de Vos’s hearing in front of the Health Professions Council of South Africa in Cape Town was postponed this week. IOL News reports it has been rescheduled for Oct. 28.
“The hearing was first scheduled for August 2018. Since the beginning of 2018 we have been asking for the information that we are entitled to by law,” said Martus de Wet, De Vos’s attorney.
De Wet said the two-plus year process has been “very frustrating.” He said the pro-life doctor is “being punished but denied the basis for it and an opportunity to answer.”
“His punishment is being not able to practice for more than two years now. He has severe health challenges. It all aggravates the situation,” he continued.
More than 20,000 people have signed a petition supporting de Vos and urging the council to drop all charges against him, according to IOL News.
“De Vos has the right to freedom of conscience and religious belief and should not be coerced to sign up to the culture of death mentality that ludicrously and ignorantly claims that human life does not begin at conception,” the petition reads.
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During the hearing, de Vos plans to defend his position that human life begins at conception with expert witnesses and scientific evidence, according to the reports.
According to the charges, de Vos allegedly “infringed” on the patient’s “autonomy with his anti-abortion utterances.” During his medical internship at 2 Military Hospital in Wynberg, he allegedly told a pregnant woman that her “fetus was a human being” and an abortion kills an unborn human, Sowetan Live reported earlier this summer.
Those “utterances” are not opinion, though. They are scientific facts. Medical and biology textbooks, medical experts and even abortionists themselves acknowledge that human life begins at conception, and an abortion kills a human being.
However, as a result of the allegations, de Vos lost his job and was banned from practicing medicine, according to the report. He was only a week away from finishing his medical degree, the report states.
De Vos’s lawyers said he has not been given a fair trial.
South Africa has some of the most liberal abortion laws in the world, allowing abortions on demand for basically any reason and taxpayer-funded abortions. Abortions became legal in 1996 under the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Bill. Celebrated leader Nelson Mandela supported the legislation.
Now, pro-life doctors are being persecuted simply for telling the truth.
The concerning situation draws attention to the importance of conscience protection laws. Without them, medical workers can lose their jobs and, worse, be prosecuted just for telling the truth. It also provides worrying evidence that abortion activists do not want women to know the truth, and they will use powerful leaders and governing bodies to keep women in ignorance about their unborn babies’ lives and the violence of abortion.