Journal Articles Archives - Page 59 of 67 - Protection of Conscience Project Library

International Developments in Abortion Law from 1988 to 1998

Rebecca J Cook, Bernard M Dickens, Laura E Bliss

Abstract
Objectives
In 2 successive decades since 1967, legal accommodation of abortion has grown in many countries. The objective of this study was to assess whether liberalizing trends have been maintained in the last decade and whether increased protection of women’s human rights has influenced legal reform.

Methods
A worldwide review was conducted of legislation and judicial rulings affecting abortion, and legal reforms were measured against governmental commitments made under international human rights treaties and at United Nations conferences.

Results
Since 1987, 26 jurisdictions have extended grounds for lawful abortion, and 4 countries have restricted grounds. Additional limits on access to legal abortion services include restrictions on funding of services, mandatory counseling and reflection delay requirements, third party authorizations, and blockades of abortion clinics.

Conclusions
Progressive liberalization has moved abortion laws from a focus on punishment toward concern with women’s health and welfare and with their human rights. However, widespread maternal mortality and morbidity show that reform must be accompanied by accessible abortion services and improved contraceptive care and information.

Cook RJ, Dickens BM, Bliss LE. International Developments in Abortion Law from 1988 to 1998. Am J Public Health. 1999;89(4):579-586.

Abortion and the married woman

Lynda Buske

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ — Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
Most Canadian women who have abortions are single, but a recent Statistics Canada study indicates that more than a quarter of them (26.7%) were either married or in a common-law relationship.

Buske L. Abortion and the married woman. Can Med Assoc J. 1998;159(4):992.

The Moral Reasoning of HEC* Members (*Hospital Ethics Committee)

Donnie J Self, Joy D Skeel

Extract
It appears that on many characteristics there are significant differences among members and non-members of HECs. Whether it be a self-selection bias or some other factor, whatever is at work on the composition of HECs seems to have a profound effect pulling toward homogeneity of the membership. This is not necessarily bad if it leads to the best ethical thinking in the institution. It does, however, give pause for thought considering the current widespread emphasis on cultural diversity in society. If diversity is thought to be desirable, is such homogeneity within HECs appropriate?

Self DJ, Skeel JD. The Moral Reasoning of HEC* Members (*Hospital Ethics Committee). HEC Forum. 1998 Mar;10(1):43-54.

Insider Trading: Conscience and Critique in Bioethics

Laurie Zoloth-Dorfman, Susan B Rubin

Extract
The problem of conscience in ethics consultation is a central part of the creation and selection of the particular standards to which we hold ourselves accountable and the very process by which we come to know,choose, and act on what is right. Finding such standards and agreeing on how to maintain personal and professional integrity forces each of us to regard in the most serious terms the core issues of our work and its meaning. And though external sources such as our profession, religion, or community may all at times influence our sense of appropriate and inappropriate behavior, on some level, each of us must also face these questions personally. At a certain point, we face a confrontation with what we are culturally shaped by modernity to “see” as our own privatized internal guide – our conscience. Turning towards conscience is turning towards a particular kind of confrontation with ourselves.

Zoloth-Dorfman L, Rubin SB. Insider Trading: Conscience and Critique in Bioethics. HEC Forum. 1998 March;10(1):24-33.

There Is No Moral Authority in Medicine: Response to Cowdin and Tuohey

John F Crosby

Abstract
Central to the Cowdin-Tuohey paper is the concept of a moral authority proper to medical practitioners. Much as I agree with the authors in refusing to degrade doctors to the status of mere technicians, I argue that one does not succeed in retrieving the moral dimension of medical practice by investing doctors with moral authority. I show that none of the cases brought forth by Cowdin-Tuohey really amounts to a case of moral authority. Then I try to explain why no such cases can be found. Developing an insight that is common to all the major moral thinkers in the philosophia perennis, I show that doctors are professionally competent with respect only to a part of the human good; morally wise persons are competent with respect to that which makes man good as man. I try to show why it follows that a) professional expertise has no natural tendency to pass over into moral understanding, and that b) doctor and non-doctor alike start from the same point in developing their understanding of medical morality. It follows that the authors fail in their attempt to de-center the moral magisterium of the Church by setting up centers of moral authority outside of the Church.

Crosby JF. There Is No Moral Authority in Medicine: Response to Cowdin and Tuohey. Christ Bioet. 1998 Jan 01;4(1):63-82.

Professional Versus Moral Duty: Accepting Appointments in Unjust Civil Cases

Teresa Stanton Collett

Extract
Conclusion
Tennessee Formal Ethics Opinion 96-F-140 attempts to disconnect morality from the lawyer’s work. The Board’s disregard of the lawyer’s moral and religious objections to accepting the appointment suggests either a hostility to the particular religious beliefs asserted by the inquiring lawyer or a willingness to demand lawyers accept being treated as mere means to clients’ and courts’ ends. Hostility to religious beliefs is deeply troubling when exhibited by those who are charged with providing lawyers’ guidance in discerning their professional obligations, but the second possible interpretation of the opinion is equally chilling. To the extent that the Board’s opinion represents the members’ considered judgment that lawyers are obligated to act as amoral facilitators of any action not proscribed by positive law, the power of the state is dramatically enlarged and the power of the individual and other social institutions dangerously diminished. This result cannot be tolerated under the terms of the First Amendment, nor can it be reconciled with the lawyer’s basic human rights.

Collett TS. Professional Versus Moral Duty: Accepting Appointments in Unjust Civil Cases. Wake Forest Law Review. 1997;32: 635-670.

Hitler’s plans for genocide: a speech from 1939

Donald Acheson

British Medical Journal, BMJ — British Medical Journal

Extract
On August 22, 1939, Adolf Hitler gave a secret speech to his top military advisers, outlining his plans for German settlement of Poland. The speech so shocked his audience that a copy was smuggled out to the British Embassy. What follows is the transcript, now in the files of the Foreign Office in London.

Acheson D. Hitler’s plans for genocide: a speech from 1939. Br Med J. 1996;313:1416.

Preventing Genocide: Episodes must be exposed, documented, and punished

Donald Acheson

Extract
I conclude that genocide is the final stage in a three stage deterioration in social relationships. . . . The resultant first stage of social deterioration is so common that few countries in the world can claim complete immunity from it. . . . The second stage involves sporadic, often cyclical, unplanned violence including shop smashing, looting, arson, and riots. . . . The final and dreadful step, which leads to attempted genocide, involves a crucial additional factor. This is the active participation, either openly or in secret, of the state itself. . . .The mass media are often a crucial factor, manipulated by politicians to inflame public opinion by, for example, fanning tribal memories of long past victories and defeats. But we must not make the mistake of placing all the blame on politicians, for no act of genocide-whether in Auschwitz or Srebrenica-has taken place without a substantial measure of public consent.

Acheson D. Preventing Genocide: Episodes must be exposed, documented, and punished. Br Med J. 1996;313(7070):1415-1417.

Nuremberg lamentation: for the forgotten victims of medical science

William E Seidelman

Abstract
Fifty years after the Nuremberg medical trial there remain many unanswered questions about the role of the German medical profession during the Third Reich. Other than the question of human experimentation, important ethical challenges arising from medicine in Nazi Germany which have continuing relevance were not addressed at Nuremberg. The underlying moral question is that of the exercise of professional power and its impact on vulnerable people seeking medical care. Sensitisation to the obligations of professional power may be achieved by an annual commemoration and lament to the memory of the victims of medical abuse which would serve as a recurring reminder of the physician’s vulnerability and fallibility.

Seidelman WE. Nuremberg lamentation: for the forgotten victims of medical science. Br Med J. 1996 Dec 7;313(7070):1463-1467.

Human guinea pigs and the ethics of experimentation: the BMJ’s correspondent at the Nuremberg medical trial

Paul Weindling

Abstract
Though the Nuremberg medical trial was a United States military tribunal, British forensic pathologists supplied extensive evidence for the trial. The BMJ had a correspondent at the trial, and he endorsed a utilitarian legitimation of clinical experiments, justifying the medical research carried out under Nazism as of long term scientific benefit despite the human costs. The British supported an international medical commission to evaluate the ethics and scientific quality of German research. Medical opinions differed over whether German medical atrocities should be given publicity or treated in confidence. The BMJ’s correspondent warned against medical researchers being taken over by a totalitarian state, and these arguments were used to oppose the NHS and any state control over medical research.

Weindling P. Human guinea pigs and the ethics of experimentation: the BMJ’s correspondent at the Nuremberg medical trial. Br Med J. 1996 Dec 07;313(7070):1467-1470.