Project Administrator, Author at Protection of Conscience Project Library

(Correspondence) GMC and Abortion Act, 1967

Myre Sim

British Medical Journal, BMJ — British Medical Journal

Extract
It is difficult for the ordinary doctor like myself to understand the role of the G.M.C. as regards medical ethics. Its change in attitude over abortion would suggest that the law of the land takes precedence over medical ethics, for the present law permits abortion for non-medical reasons. Does this mean that the G.M.C. will maintain only those medical ethics which do not conflict with the law, and that laws permitting euthanasia and sterilization of the unfit would receive similar sanction ? There is surely a conflict here not only between the G.M.C. and individual doctors but between the G.M.C. and those medical ethics which have international recognition..

Sim M. (Correspondence) GMC and Abortion Act, 1967. Br Med J. 1968 May 4;2(5600):298.

(Correspondence) Ethics and Abortion

JP Crawford

Extract
Surely a decision by Parliament in a democracy cannot be described as sinister ” superior orders” echoing Nuremberg 20 years ago (or rather what ended there and then). The boot could be argued to be on the other foot-namely, that doctors are prepared to dictate to the nation.

Crawford J. (Correspondence) Ethics and Abortion. Br Med J. 1968 Apr 20;2(5598):173.

(Correspondence) Ethics and Abortion

RS Ferguson

Extract
It will be interesting to learn, when the Representative Body takes its decisions, whether this ” official ” medical ethics will concede the right, sometimes even the duty, of the convinced dissenter to adopt the stand of conscientious objector. Or will the moral empire be essentially totalitarian in nature ?

Ferguson R. (Correspondence) Ethics and Abortion. Br Med J. 1968 April 20;2(5598):173.

(Editorial) Ethics and Abortion (Response)

British Medical Journal

Extract
[Re: comparison of legal dictation of ethical norms to “superior orders” defense at Nuremberg] “It was a plea of ” superior orders ” in justification of a profession changing an ethical rule which we said would be the ” sinister echo ” not the superior orders themselves (in this case the provisions of the Abortion Act).”

BMJ. (Editorial) Ethics and Abortion (Response). Br Med J. 1968;2(5598):173.

(Correspondence) Ethics and Abortion

Dugald Baird

Extract
What the Act does is to make clear beyond doubt that termination of pregnancy is legal and that the decision to terminate or not should be left, as far as possible, to the clinical judgement of the doctors concerned, and that in reaching their decision doctors may take into account the effect of the patient’s total environment on her health.

Baird D. (Correspondence) Ethics and Abortion. Br Med J. 1968;2(5598):173.

(Editorial) Ethics and Abortion

British Medical Journal

Extract
So the B.M.A., representing most doctors in Britain, had clearly stated its views on the ethics of abortion. Parliament then made it legal for a doctor to terminate pregnancy on wider indications than the B.M.A. thought ethically permissible. Should the Association’s opinions on ethics be altered to bring them into line with the law? Posed with that question last week the Council decided that they should not (Supplement, p. 3), and the Representative Body is to be asked in June to ratify this decision . . . The principle at issue is fundamental if doctors are to preserve their right to call themselves professional men. A profession sets a standard of conduct for its members, and the essence of professional freedom for a doctor is his right to act in professional matters uninfluenced by any considerations other than the judgement of his fellows. Medical ethics are the collective conscience of the profession, and a plea of ” superior orders ” would be a sinister echo of some- thing that ended 20 years ago at Nuremberg.

BMJ. (Editorial) Ethics and Abortion. Br Med J. 1968;2(5596):3.

BMA Council: Central Ethics Committee (Proceedings)

BMA

Abstract
Dr. Woolley, referring to the Committee’s recommendation on the ethics of termination of pregnancy, said that Lord Cohen had accepted that the General Medical Council’s rulings had to agree with the law of the land, but he (Dr. Woolley) pointed out that any society was permitted to have its own code and standards, and the B.M.A. was one of those soceties. . . Dr. E. A. GERRARD, Chairman of the B.M.A.’s Committee on Therapeutic Abortion, said that if, as it would seem, the General Medical Council was not the guardian of the ethos of medicine in the matter of abortion, the Ethical Committee’s recommendation, backed by the Council, was the correct one. In other words, the British Medical Association must become the guardian of the ethos of medicine.

BMA. BMA Council: Central Ethics Committee (Proceedings). Br Med J. 1968;2(5596 (Supplement)):3.

(Correspondence) Requests for Abortion

R Geoffrey Bird

Extract
Bearing in mind the expense of caring for the disturbed unmarried mother and the unwanted child, abortion clinics might well prove to be more economical for the country generally.

Bird RG. (Correspondence) Requests for Abortion. Br Med J. 1968;1(5587):311.

(Correspondence) Abortion and Conscience

Myre Sim

Extract
That the W.H.O. includes such a phrase [“well-being”] in their definition of mental health does not give it legal validity. Neither does it give it medical sanction, for W.H.O. definitions are notoriously unstable and liable to change, as is evidenced by those on alcoholism and drug addiction. There is no agreement on a definition of ” mental health ” in spite of national associations, institutes, and research funds devoted to its cause.

Sim M. (Correspondence) Abortion and Conscience. Br Med J. 1967 Dec 16;4(5580):684.

(Correspondence) Abortion and Conscience

Alan Sanderson

Extract
Dr. Myre Sim (4 November, p. 297) exhorts those of us without religious objections to abortion to heed our medical consciences. He is so convinced of the rightness of his views that he brands any doctor who acts differently as lacking in conscience. I do not agree with this assumption. Many highly conscientious doctors favour abortion on social grounds. . . . For most of us it takes courage to recommend or to perform an abortion. It is an operation from which we shrink with a natural abhorrence. How much easier it is to do nothing, especially if inaction can be condoned by invoking ” medical conscience.”

Sanderson A. (Correspondence) Abortion and Conscience. Br Med J. 1967 Dec 09;4(5579):621.