Protection for anti-Pill doctor

Press, 26 August 1977, Page 7

Protection for anti-Pill doctor

NZPA Hobart; The menfolk of the iso-i lated Tasmanian township of, ! Zeehan have formed a vigil-' ante squad to protect theirj anti-Pill doctor from the' media. The men. members of the Loval Medical Board, which ’employs the doctor, said i they feared if he was badgered he would leave the town.

His beliefs on coni traception had nothing to do jwith the board, whose responsibility was to the 3000 people in the tin-mining town, they said. The Tasmanian Governm e n t on Wednesday launched an “Operation Pill” to “rescue” the 500 w’omen lin the tow nship who want contraceptive pills. The Government an-j nounced it would sponsor a clinic at Zeehan on Saturday) to provide contraceptives. And the Family’ Planning Association will then take lover with monthly clinics, at which contraceptives will be [ issued. The Tasmanian Minister I for Health, Mr Lowe, revealed the “rescue plan” .n • (State Parliament. The move overcomes a! delicate problem, for while) the women of child-bearing) age w’ere incensed at the! refusal of Dr D. Bracken to! dispense the Pill, they did! not want to lose him. i The town w-as 18 months j I without a resident doctor' j until Dr Bracken arrived (three weeks ago. The issue had threatened !to cause marital problems, as the women attacked the! doctor and the men from the tin-mining town defended him. Scuffles broke out) when reporters tried to interview Dr Bracken on Wednesday and a member of) the medical board smashed a television camera lens. Dr Bracken, who is 65, said on Tuesday that he would not prescribe the Pill on medical grounds. He believes in an “ideal society,” where men and women come together every five years to conceive children.

The women rejected his ideal and until the Government’s “Operation Pill” was announced many of them were driving 40km to the nearest doctors in Queenstown.

Dr Bracken refused yesterday to answer questions on his attitude, but he has told the women of the town that they had no right to tell him what to prescribe. He has said he is against contraception on moral and ethical grounds and he feels the Pill can lead to serious, even fatal, complaints. The feeling of the town was summed up by a woman leaving the surgery with her six-year-old sori: “The women are right and the doctor — although he’s a good doctor — is wrong.

j “But we waited years for. a doctor. If he goes, we) won’t get another doctor wi-i | thin a bull’s roar of this i place.”