Extract The appearance of the two letters on abortion in sequence in the Journal . . . illustrated the diverging ethics of the members and future members of our profession. Reading the letter by Dr. Heine was indeed like feeling a breath of fresh unpolluted air in the smog of today’s confused thinking. . . .How different was the letter by the President of the Medical Students’ Society of McGill University stating the unanimous opinion of their Executive Council.
Extract I cannot believe that the majority of physicians in Canada really couldn’t care less about such vital problems as the unwanted pregnancy and its reaction on the subsequent mental health of the mother (and unwanted child), not to mention the increasing threat to our way of life from overpopulation. I can only conclude that it is the wish not to be involved which permits major decisions to be swayed by a small but vocal group of religious bigots -sincere, well-meaning, God-fearing people, no doubt, but bigots just the same in that they seek to enforce the attitudes and wishes of a minority upon the majority.
Extract . . . Apart from a difference in maturity, there is no essential difference biologically between the prenatal and the postnatal child. It would appear, however, that those who believe in liberalized abortion ignore completely the most simple biological facts about the prenatal child and assume that life begins at birth and that whatever goes on before this is so mysterious that it can hardly be called life. . . Those who say that a law should be passed making abortion a purely medical question and independent of the law are in fact saying that the prenatal child does not deserve any legal right to life whatsoever. . .
Extract Canadians, including those within the medical profession, range from a truly “liberal” pole, which views abortion within the first 12 weeks of gestation as simply a means of secondary birth control, to a truly “conservative” pole, which views interruption of pregnancy in any circumstances as murder. . . In a just Canadian society in the year 1970 it would seem appropriate that occupants of neither polar position should be allowed to impose their moral attitudes on the rest of the country. . .
Parenthetically one must question why any group requires the assistance of state law to ensure that its members adhere to its ethical, moral or religious code. Certainly proponents of the truly “liberal” position have no intention of trying to force any woman to have an abortion against her will. . .
. . . Doctors should not be obliged to assume the function of gatekeepers to decide which unwanted children should be allowed into this overpopulated world and which ones should not. The moral aspect of this question should reside solely with the patient and not with the physician. His role should be to ensure that the patient really does want the pregnancy terminated and to make sure that the procedure is carried out early and safely. If the doctor’s moral position on this question precludes his providing her with the care required, he is now ethically bound by The Canadian Medical Association’s code of ethics to inform her that this is so, while making it clear that this is his own personal attitude. . .
Summary Page long comment by CMA official who encountered feminist pickets outside the CMA office accusing the association of being anti-abortion, accusing gynecologists of lying about legality of abortion and refusing to distribute contraceptives to the unmarried. Also demanding abortion on demand. “I hope that the demands of the Women’s Liberation Movement will not prevail, if for no more lofty reason than that the plight of doctors, nurses and hospitals would be worse than it is”.
Extract The main purpose of my letter was to clarify what I thought was Dr. Coffey’s confusion between moral and religious issues on therapeutic abortion. . . . Hence that “infamous” third paragraph was not an argument in support of therapeutic abortion but a clearer definition of the moral issues involved. How Dr. Harrison was able to extrapolate the basically sociological data to include implied support of a euthanasia program against 270,000 mental defectives and Hitler’s subsequent genocide of Jews during World War II is totally beyond my comprehension.
Borsch R. (Correspondence) Therapeutic Abortion. Can Med Assoc J. 1970;102(11):1209-1210.
Extract However, he seems to have confused morality with the religious (and more specifically Roman Catholic) stand against destroying a living entity. Thus, his letter is an attempt to deal with the therapeutic abortion problem on religious grounds. . . I also take issue with Dr.Coffey’s comment that the medical indications for therapeutic abortion are ”mainly psychiatric.” Psychiatric indications are actually just as many as medical, which are few, if any. However, it is the psychiatrist who is thrust in the breach of the current legislation and must take liberties to interpret the law to fit his own patient. . .
Borsch R. (Correspondence) Therapeutic Abortion. Can. Med. Assoc. J.. 1970;102(6):642. Available from:
Extract . . . I can only touch on some of the reasons why I am opposed to therapeutic abortion. My main reason is a moral one, but first a word from a purely medical standpoint. It is being increasingly realized that medical indications for therapeutic abortion are few, if any, and that they are mainly psychiatric. But for every psychiatrist who would say that in a certain case the patient would benefit by having an abortion there would be another who would disagree and say that the long-term effect on the patient’s mind outweighed any immediate beneficial effect that the procedure might have. . . . My plea is that we as a profession not unwittingly commit a moral wrong which future generations of doctors will accept as the norm to the detriment of our human society. My contention is that when a doctor is caring for a pregnant women, he really has two patients on his hands even though one may be very tiny. Is it ever justifiable to kill one patient in the hope that it will improve the lot of the other?
Extract While claiming that there is no suggestion that any general practitioner be excluded from assessing that an abortion is necessary or desirable, what is being sought by the opponents of the Act in its present form is that one of the two doctors should be a consultant gynaecologist holding office in the N.H.S. . . By restricting the operation of ‘the Act to a minority of the profession, many of whom are opposed to it on religious and other grounds, will cripple it.
Extract The Act does not give Dr. Hughes the right to castigate those psychiatrists who, acting “in good faith,” are seriously in doubt as to whether an abortion is justified, and for good reasons know that support and treatment would be at least as effective as abortion in dealing with the problem be it-social or medical. They have ample clinical evidence- to support the ” good faith ” of their decisions . . .. It would be of great interest to see- what factual evidence could be produced to support the many decisions to abort under the present Act.
