When Health and Disability Commissioner Ron Paterson gives his decision on a complaint about hospitals, it generally receives widespread coverage, particularly in newspapers, which remain the source of our most comprehensive and reliable news.

Not so, it seems, when the subject of the complaint touches on abortion, a word that seems to terrify journalists witless.

Thus, a landmark decision issued by Mr Paterson lately on a complaint against the Waikato District Health Board has, as far as I know, gone unreported in mainstream media.

In it, Mr Paterson rules that women undergoing an ultrasound scan when considering an abortion have the right to be offered the opportunity to view the scan of the baby in the womb.

The Waikato DHB's refusal to offer a look at the scan to women to whom it is given was the basis of a complaint made to Mr Paterson by the pro-life group Right to Life.

In his decision, Mr Paterson said: "I have carefully considered the issue you have raised. Clearly, a woman undergoing an ultrasound scan has the right to view her scan.

"As you have recognised, she also has the right to decide not to view the scan.

"In order to exercise this choice, a woman will know that she is able to view the scan. I have written to Waikato DHB reminding them of Right 6 of the Code [of Health Rights], which states that consumers have the right to the information that a reasonable consumer, in that consumer's circumstances, would expect to receive.

"In my view, this would generally include the information that the woman may view the scan should she wish."

This decision will have national repercussions since a survey last year revealed that a number of DHBs do not offer women considering an abortion the chance to see their scans; they have to ask.

It is important, too, because studies in the United States have shown that inviting women to view their scans causes many, recognising the child's humanity, to decide against an abortion and to give birth to their babies. Pregnancy counselling services report that the number of women who change their minds after seeing an ultrasound scan varies between 62 and 95 per cent.

Which means that if Mr Paterson's decision is implemented nationally, the lives of many babies in this country might be saved, and their mothers spared a lifetime of grief and psychological damage.