No-one comes out smelling of roses in this BBC report.

The doctor, Professor Bogdan Chazan has a right to his beliefs, and to refuse to perform an abortion, but he most certainly does not have the right to impose his beliefs on his patients. If patients have a right to an abortion, as they do in Poland, then he has an obligation to correctly inform patients of those rights, and to refer patients to another doctor who is willing to perform one. It seems that he did not refer the patient in question to another doctor, and also seems to have lied to her about the law on how late in a pregnancy termination is allowed. Yes, he deserved to be fired.

The government seems to have failed in its duty to provide adequate information to patients about their legal rights to abortion. There should have been information leaflets easily available (i.e. on display) at the doctor's surgery. Given what happened, it seems that the patient did not know her rights.

The patient also has to take some responsibility. Why didn't she get a second opinion? In the end, she had the baby, even though she didn't want to (she had good reason, due to her child's chances of survival because of facial and head defects being slim), because Professor Chazan refused her an abortion.