Nature of Medical Practice Archives - Protection of Conscience Project Library

Doctors; conscience, care and pay

Gustave Gingras

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ — Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
Salaried physicians equal incompetent doctors? Certainly not! Quality medical care depends on a practitioner’s conscience, not the compensation method. . . One acquires professional ethics and satisfaction in one’s work. These things can also be lost, however. Whether the physician charges a fee for service or whether he is salaried, it is his professional conscience that remains his guide, his religion, his motto. . .

Gingras G. Doctors; conscience, care and pay. Can Med Assoc J. 1978 April 8;118(7):853-854.

(Correspondence) Therapeutic abortion

R Halliday

Extract
Dr. Ough correctly points out that “the abortion controversy is essentially a conflict of ethical systems” and acknowledges that one may practise within either a “traditional” or “utilitarian” ethic. . . . A utilitarian ethic, or a social ethic, may lead to legalization of abortion on demand . . . However, I do not believe the medical ethic embraces the concept of abortion (or hysterectomy, or providing narcotics, or commitment to a mental hospital) on demand. We are medical practitioners, not agents or practitioners for a theory of social engineering…

Halliday R. (Correspondence) Therapeutic abortion. Can Med Assoc J. 1975 November 8;113(9):821.

(Correspondence) Therapeutic abortion

Robert Halliday

Extract
As a psychiatrist I have examined many patients who were referred for emotional or psychological assessment and, where appropriate, I have recommended that the pregnancy be terminated. . . While I am prepared to agree that in this area there may be dispute, nevertheless it is quite different from the so-called “abortion on demand”, which has no ethical medical basis. . . The solution would be to train and legalize abortionists, who would not be physicians, to perform abortion on demand, a procedure that has nothing to do with the ethical practice of medicine..

Halliday R. (Correspondence) Therapeutic abortion. Can Med Assoc J. 1975 August 23;113(4):276-278.

(Correspondence) Therapeutic abortion

AC Hayes

Extract
If therapeutic abortion in a healthy person presents a complex sociocultural problem, as Dr. Rapp claims (Can Med Assoc J 112: 682, 1975), the decision as to whether or not an abortion should be performed should be made by an expert in sociocultural problems, not by the patient and not by the physician.

Hayes AC. (Correspondence) Therapeutic abortion. Can Med Assoc J. 1975 May 17;112(10):1166.