Abortion Archives - Page 18 of 50 - Protection of Conscience Project Library

The High Cost of Merging With A Religiously-Controlled Hospital

Monica Sloboda

Berkeley Women's Law Journal — Berkeley Women’s Law Journal

Extract
Conclusion
The trend of hospital mergers between religious and non-religious hospitals may continue to threaten access to reproductive health services, especially for patients who already have limited access because they live in rural areas or have low incomes.l” However, as this essay suggests, there are several avenues that concerned citizens and activists can take to try to prevent the loss of these vital services.l ” The creativity and determination of those who commit themselves to ensuring that reproductive health services will continue to be available to all who desire them has resulted in several viable legal and practical methods of intervention. Although I believe it is important to respect the religious rights and beliefs of others. when the expression of these beliefs encroaches on patients’ rights to access basic health services, intervention is appropriate and necessary. I hope that public outcry, in the forms of legal and grassroots action, will persuade state actors, legislatures, hospital administrators, and clergy to properly acknowledge patients’ rights and participate in the creation of acceptable solutions to the financial problems that hospitals increasingly face. We need solutions that do not deny essential health services to any group of people.

Sloboda M. The High Cost of Merging With A Religiously-Controlled Hospital. Berkeley Women’s Law J. 2001 Sep;140-156.

(Correspondence) The abortion issue

Patrick G Coffey

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ — Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
Having read the well-written article by Laura Eggertson, I feel that her thrust (and that of Planned Parenthood, the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League, Health Minister Allan Rock, etc.) is that it is a scandal and surprise that a “medically necessary” operation — abortion — is not universally accepted like other procedures You do not hear most of the old debating arguments about abortion any more, but the one that will not go away concerns whether abortion is a medically necessary operation. . . .Abortion is both a moral and a medical issue, and we should not be surprised if people do not regard it as a necessary procedure in the same way they view other operations.

Coffey PG. (Correspondence) The abortion issue. Can Med Assoc J. 2001 Jul 10;165(1):14-15.

(Correspondence) The abortion issue

Will Johnston

Extract
Your homey analogy of abortion as a patchwork quilt — a warm, comforting and maternal object if ever there was one — furthers the dishonourable tradition of euphemizing the medicalized killing of small human beings. . . CMA members remain deeply divided on these issues. An even-handed editorial and reporting style would show respect for this diversity of opinion.

Johnston W. (Correspondence) The abortion issue. Can Med Assoc J. 2001 Jul 10;165(1):15.

(News) Over-the-counter emergency contraception available soon across the country?

Barbara Sibbald

Extract
Following a Feb. 16 meeting with the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) and 4 other organizations, Health Canada has started working toward making emergency postcoital contraception available without a prescription across the country . . . Senikas says some opponents equate EPC with abortion and “have this misplaced notion that emergency contraception is like RU-486. It’s not. It will never displace a pregnancy.

Sibbald B. Over-the-counter emergency contraception available soon across the country? Can Med Assoc J. 2001 Mar 20;164(6):849.

(News) Teen pregnancy rate down, abortion rate up

Lynda Buske

Extract
The rate of pregnancy among Canadian teenagers aged 15 to 19 has declined by about 20% since 1974 . . . However, the proportion of live births resulting from these pregnancies has decreased relative to the proportion of teenagers receiving abortions.

Buske L. Teen pregnancy rate down, abortion rate up. Can Med Assoc J. 2001;164(3):395.

(News) Will Canada follow US lead on RU486?

Barbara Sibbald

Extract
After 17 years of debate, mifepristone (RU 486), the controversial pill that induces early abortion, is for sale in the US. The drug’s Canadian proponents hope this country will soon follow suit. . . . The SOGC passed a resolution in 1992 supporting the “legal availability” of antiprogesterone steroids such as mifepristone in order to give “Canadian women access to treatment of proven efficacy.” Lalonde says withholding approval is an “insult to women — they’re being treated like babies, being refused access to this and that when it comes to their health.” Not everyone is as enthusiastic. Mary Ellen Douglas, national organizer for Canada’s Campaign Life Coalition (www.lifesite.net), told CMAJ: “The result of taking this pill is a dead baby, and that’s certainly not a drug we need here.”

Sibbald B. Will Canada follow US lead on RU486?. Can Med Assoc J. 2001 Jan 09;164(1):82.

(News) FDA considering restricted access to “abortion pill”

Barbara Sibbald

Extract
Mifepristone, the controversial “abortion pill,” may soon be available in the US, but the distribution rules may be so strict that they “hurt access.”. . . Mifepristone has been available to women in many European countries for more than a decade. More than 500 000 women worldwide have used it, with few complications reported. When taken with misoprostol, which has already been approved in Canada, mifepristone causes abortion – in essence a miscarriage – in 95% of women who are no more than 49 days pregnant.

Sibbald B. FDA considering restricted access to “abortion pill”. Can Med Assoc J. 2000 Sep 5;163(5):586.

The Continuing Conflict between
Sanctity of Life and Quality of Life

From Abortion to Medically Assisted Death

Bernard M Dickens

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

The purpose of this paper is to address how analysts and commentators approach the relationship between abortion law and law governing medically assisted death, discussion of which is here limited to assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia. The issue of involuntary euthanasia or “mercy killing” of non-consenting persons is beyond the present discussion. This paper is further limited to English language literature, and to legal experience and commentary primarily from the United States of America, Britain and Canada, although reactions to developments in the Netherlands are included. Attention will be directed initially to legal and related analysts and commentators who oppose legalization both of abortion and of medically assisted death, and who resist application of the reasoning that supported decriminalization of abortion to medically assisted death. They represent the socalled Pro-Life protagonists in the debate. Language is often employed instrumentally in the conduct of the disagreement, but the practice adopted here is to refer to protagonists by the titles they give themselves.

Second, attention will be given to adherents to the so-called pro-choice position, who favor both liberalized abortion laws and tolerance of medical means by which individuals may end their own lives when they find survival excessively painful, burdensome, or undignified. Consideration is then given to those who oppose liberal abortion laws, perhaps because of fetal vulnerability, but who consider that non-vulnerable, competent persons, such as terminal patients in unrelievable distress, should be legally entitled to assistance in dying. The reverse is then addressed, concerning those who favor women’s choice on abortion, but oppose medically assisted death because, for instance, it may be exploitive of disabled patients or violative of ethical duties that health care professionals owe patients. In conclusion, it will be proposed that reconciliation of opposing views may be approached through promotion of choice, both to continue unplanned pregnancy and burdensome life, through availability of options that individuals may be encouraged and supported, but not coerced, to adopt.

Dickens BM. The Continuing Conflict between Sanctity of Life and Quality of Life: From Abortion to Medically Assisted Death. Annals NY Acad Sciences 2000 Sep;913:88-104

(News) Matters of principle; AMA favors reproductive rights access but says providers can’t be forced to violate conscience

Deanna Bellandi,Elizabeth Thompson

Extract
After Roman Catholic leaders issued strong criticism about its trampling of religious freedom, the American Medical Association approved a watered-down measure supporting continued community access to a full range of reproductive services following hospital consolidations. The AMA’s amended resolution stopped short of saying Catholic hospitals should have to perform all reproductive health procedures. . . The AMA instead upheld its policy that physicians and hospitals not be forced to perform services that violate their moral principles. . .

Bellandi D, Thompson E. Matters of principle; AMA favors reproductive rights access but says providers can’t be forced to violate conscience. Mod Healthcare 2000 Jun 19; 30(25): 6,14.

(News) With teen pregnancies skyrocketing, ob/gyns seek support for nonprescription “morning-after pill”

Barbara Sibbald

Extract
Support for a move to make emergency postcoital contraception available without a prescription appears to be mushrooming in Canada. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) and 23 other medical and pharmaceutical organizations have joined the groundswell of support since the SOGC launched a campaign to increase awareness and availability of the “morning-after pill” in November 1998. . . some CPhA members feel emergency contraception “may interfere with implantation of the fertilized egg and they consider that more [like] abortion,” said Cooper. Pharmacists for Life, a Canadian group with about 10 members, has already opposed the move, even though the World Health Organization (WHO) says taking the drug is not equivalent to performing an abortion because the woman is not pregnant.

Sibbald B. With teen pregnancies skyrocketing, ob/gyns seek support for nonprescription “morning-after pill”. Can Med Assoc J. 1999 Oct 5;161(7):855.