Journal Articles Archives - Page 67 of 67 - Protection of Conscience Project Library

Summary of memorandum by R.M.P.A

British Medical Journal

Extract

The Royal Medico-Psychological Association issued last month a memorandum on possible changes in the law relating to therapeutic abortion. Emphasizing that it would be opposed to legislation which might bring pressure on an individual doctor to act contrary to his conscience, the memorandum states that the Royal Medico-Psychological Association has approached the problem of therapeutic abortion with the firm view that, in addition to traditionally accepted medical and psychiatric criteria, all social circumstances should be taken into account. . . .

Summary of memorandum by R.M.P.A. Br Med J. 1966 July 2; 2(5504): 44

Nurses, family planning and conscience

G.R. Avellar

Avellar GR. Nurses, family planning and conscience. Cathol Nurse 1966 Mar;14(3):38-42 PMID:5182054

Medical Issues in Abortion Law Reform

Lord Brain

Extract
There remain for consideration some general problems to which very little attention has so far been paid. It is necessary to distinguish (1) the law relating to abortion, (2) professional ethics relating to abortion, and (3) individual ethical standards. Hitherto (1) and (2) have coincided, in that an offence against the law relating to abortion has also been treated as an offence against professional ethics. Personal ethical standards, however, may differ from those of the law or of the profession as a whole. If the law is relaxed the General Medical Council will presumably have to consider whether professional ethical standards should be correspondingly relaxed. Individual judgements, however, may well show a much wider range than in the past, when doctors who were not opposed to abortion in principle were usually prepared to accept the standards laid down by the Bourne judgement. . . Doctors will, of course, remain free to exercise their own judgements in these matters, and the same must apply to the nurses and others who have to cooperate with them.

Brain L. Medical Issues in Abortion Law Reform. Br Med J. 1966;1(5489):727-729.

“Jencks and Administrative Proceedings: Conscientious Objectors and Government Employees,”

Indiana Law Journal

Extract

In this country persons who by reason of religious training and belief conscientiously object to participation in any war are exempted from military service. This immunization, however, is not derived from the constitutional “freedom of religion” right but “arises solely through congressional grace, in pursuance of a traditional American policy of deference to conscientious objection. ‘ To understand the problems that arise in this area, it is necessary to be familiar with the procedure by which a person may take advantage of this immunization. . .

“Jencks and Administrative Proceedings: Conscientious Objectors and Government Employees,” Indiana Law Journal: Vol. 34: Iss. 3, Article 4.

The Significance of Conscience

Iredell Jenkins

Extract
. . . the following seems the safest procedure. First, to give an account of the most general, and the most generally accepted, characteristics of those experienced occasions that we refer to as issuing from conscience. This will be brief, evocative rather than analytical in method, and selfconsciously undoctrinaire. Second, to consider what inferences can be drawn from this behavior of conscience concerning the sort of mechanism conscience is, the ways in which it operates, and the function that it fills. . . . In short, in this inquiry . . . I shall reason from what conscience does to what it is; from the effects it produces to the structure it has and the purposes it serves; from its impact on human experience to its role in the human economy.

Jenkins I. The Significance of Conscience. Ethics. 1955 Jul;65(4):261-270.

The evolution of a social obstetric conscience

C.H.G. MacAfee

Extract

. . . The title of my lecture may sound peculiar, but as my story unfolds I trust that the need and importance of public interest in obstetric practice will become apparent. The art of obstetrics is age old, and the risks to mother and child as old as recorded history, but the science of obstetrics and the appreciation of the necessity for active measures to reduce the risks are of relatively recent origin. Many factors contributed to this lack of social conscience, factors which may seem strange to a public accustomed to see all the details of a confinement portrayed in the cinema.

MacAfee CHG. The evolution of a social obstetric conscience. Ulster Med J. 1949 November; 18(2): 129-138, 139-142.

The Problem of Social Control of the Congenital Defective: Education, Sterilization, Euthanasia

Foster Kennedy

Extract
. . . What to do with the hopelessly unfit? I had thought at a younger time of my life that the legalizing of euthanasia . . . Now my face is set against the legalization of euthanasia for any person, who, having been well, has at last become ill . . . But I am in favor of euthanasia for those hopeless ones who should never have been born-Nature’s mistakes.

. . . should the social organism grow up and forward to the desire to relieve decently from living the utterly unfit, sterilize the less unfit, and educate the still less unfit-then the Law must also grow, along with the amplitude of our new ideas for a wiser and better world, and fit the growing organism easily and well; and thereafter civilization will pass on and on in beauty.

Kennedy F. The Problem of Social Control of the Congenital Defective: Education, Sterilization, Euthanasia. Am J Psychiatry. 1942 Jul;99(1):13-16.

The evolution of the conscience in civilised communities: In special relation to sexual vices

R.A. Fisher

Opening

(Paper read at the International Eugenics Congress, 1921) That the mental and moral qualities of mankind are inherited to the same extent as are the physical characters is now so firmly established that we have some difficulty in realising the opposition which early investigators encountered in establishing this fact. . . .

Fisher RA. The evolution of the conscience in civilised communities: in special relation to sexual vices. Eugen Rev. 1922 October; 14(3): 190–193.

The Vaccination Acts: the conscience clause

John C. McVail

Extract

Closely interlinked with the subject of a Revaccination Act is that of the Conscience Clause. When the Royal Commission on Vaccination published its final report and boldly recommended a Conscience Clause, a great part of the medical profession and probably also of the public were startled at what they regarded as a lowering of the vaccination flag. Some opponents of vaccination appeared at first to be jubilant over what they professed to regard as an antivaccination victory. . .

McVail JC. The Vaccination Acts: the conscience clause. Br Med J. 1903 January 17; 1(2194): 142–145

The duties of magistrates under the Vaccination Act: The conscience clause

British Medical Journal

Extract

The Conscience Clause-the only section of the Vaccination Act as yet in force-appears to have caused some consternation amongst the magistrates upon whom will rest the duty of administering it. To those of the “Great Unpaid” who have heretofore systematically refused to do their duty it will make but little difference; they will continue to disobey the law with perhaps an easier conscience. Setting them aside, however, we anxiously turn to consider the attitude which those who have always endeavoured to do their duty upon the bench are about to adopt. . .

The duties of magistrates under the Vaccination Act: The conscience clause. Br Med J. 1898 September 17; 2(1968): 817–818.