Extract It seems reasonable, therefore, to conclude that an increasingly large number of therapeutic abortions will be dealt with privately in the future. I am therefore perturbed that an attempt is being made to limit the activities of medical practitioners who are not in the N.H.S. I refer to the desire of Lord Dilhorne to make it necessary that at least one of the two doctors who will take responsibility for a therapeutic abortion must be in the N.H.S.
Mr. Wilfrid G. Mills was right when he stated (5 February, p. 355) that the present law permits the medical profession to perform all necessary abortions. But I think he was wrong when he inferred that there was no need for reform of the law. . .
. . . Dr. Sim suggests the B.M.A. should press for delay in legislation on this important subject, and a leading article (29 January, p. 248) makes the same point. I do not think it is right to plead for postponement in a matter which so deeply affects the health of a very large number of women. Abortion is not a new condition like some previously unknown virus or unreported drug reaction. . . .
In view of the report which you printed (Supplement, 22 January, p. 19) of the Special Committee on Therapeutic Abortion, the following points may be of interest: (1) The Abortion Law Reform Association strongly opposes any special procedure of notification of medical termination of pregnancy . . .
Extract Only this much have I suggested, that in view of that which is plainly a higher mandate; in view of the multiple miseries of the syphilitic infant and child, and its degenerate maturity; in view more especially of the fact that not upon us, but upon these miserable little creatures from whom we avert the mercy of abortion, the consequences of our interference fall, we should in all cases in which Nature is trying to cast off a syphilitic foetus thankfully allow her to do so.
Extract The publication of such distressing cases is of great value, as the more widely they are known the more surely we shall receive the support of all good men and women in our efforts to induce Parliament to sanction preventitive regulation, similar to those which, wisely introduced and unwisely repealed, brought, during this too brief period of existence, the priceless blessing of health, not only to men and women, but also to the little children.
Extract . . .That syphilis will convert a Caucasian child into a Mongoloid, however, is a statement ethnologists will hardly accept without further proof. The comparison, indeed, is entirely superficial and misleading . . .
Extract Miss Kenealy is a lady who possesses the courage of her convictions, for few of her brother practitioners will regard her action as anything but morally indefensible. To purposely refrain from interfering to prevent abortion does not differ in principle from actively bringing it about, and the question she has raised resolves itself into whether it is justifiable in the interest of the child to procure abortion when the parents are syphilitic. If we admit the justifiability of abortion in these cases, we must also admit that it is justifiable . . . whenever there is a chance that the child will inherit any tendency to disease-a radical method of eliminating unhealthy strains in the race. As doctors we must regard life as sacred, and it is our plain duty to strive to save or prolong life as long as we can . . . and only when another life is threatened are we justified in contemplating any measure which will destroy life. Whether the life we are striving to save is or is not of value has nothing to do with us.
Extract ” A Question of Conscience ” opens up the very important question as to how far any individual has the right to make himself the judge of whether or not another human being is fit to live, and to withhold from him his chance of living. To do so is to accept a responsibility which to my mind is far beyond that which any man or woman individually should assume. . . The mother of the foetus in question trusts to the honour of her medical attendant to give both her and her child the best chances of life and health available; and whatever may be the opinion of Miss Kenealy of the exact degree of value of mercury as a ” cure ” for the disease, being convinced, as she seems to be, that it is the one drug offering any chance of improvement, however little, she will in my opinion be neglecting an obvious duty both to her patient and to society if she fails to make use of it.
Extract I explained to her the cause and said ” You will have another dead child, then I shall treat you and you shall have a living one.” Now comes the question of conscience. ” Why not now ?” she asked. ” Because it is not expedient that the child at present in your womb should live.” I considered that no treatment could make such a change in it as to make life anything but a curse. Between seven and eight months she was again delivered of a dead child. I then put her under mercurial treatment. In twelve months she had a perfectly healthy son. I put this son under mercury for twelve months, keeping up the mother’s treatment uninterruptedly for three years. She had three more perfectly healthy children in rapid succession, which were not treated separately. Two years ago I visited the town and found them out and four better grown, better looking (they had all their mother’s beauty) or more intelligent young men and women you could not find in their station in life, two were married and had healthy children. . . Miss Kenealy’s conscience and mine, I think, are at one on the question.
