Journal Editorials Archives - Page 4 of 4 - Protection of Conscience Project Library

(Editorial) Abortion in Canada

CMAJ

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. . .

CMAJ. (Editorial) Abortion in Canada. Can Med Assoc J. 1970 Aug 01;103(3):298-299.

(Editorial) Demand for Abortion

British Medical Journal

Extract
. . .at the present rate and with no further increase in demand the annual number of abortions in England and Wales would be at least 35,000. He compared this demand with an estimate from the Ministry of Health and Registrar General’s Office of 1,600 therapeutic abortions in 1958 and 2,800 in 1962. The public have thus endorsed the Act and are asking doctors to implement it in a liberal way. . . . It is apparent that the Abortion Act has brought many people what they wanted-namely, a more liberal attitude towards the termination of pregnancy. . . The number of unwanted pregnancies indicated by the latest figures underlines the need for all doctors working in the National Health Service to provide adequate and accurate advice on contraception.

BMJ. (Editorial) Demand for Abortion. Br Med J. 1969;1(5638):199-200.

(Editorial) Therapeutic Abortion

British Medical Journal

Extract
[Notes increase in abortion since change in law. Discusses abortion methods.] “In summary, when the decision has been taken to terminate pregnancy it is best carried out in the first fourteen weeks by a conventional one-stage evacuation or by vacuum suction, and later in pregnancy by abdominal hysterotomy. But therapeutic abortion is not a simple operation. Those who would extend the scope of legal abortion on purely social grounds would do well to remember that no method of terminating pregnancy is entirely devoid of risk. The operation is only as safe as the surgeon who performs it. Mishaps will occur, and they will be kept to a minimum only when operations are performed in well-equipped hospitals by skilled gynaecologists who are well aware of the dangers.”

BMJ. (Editorial) Therapeutic Abortion. Br Med J. 1968;4(5634):786-787.

(Editorial) Ethics and Abortion (Response)

British Medical Journal

Extract
[Re: comparison of legal dictation of ethical norms to “superior orders” defense at Nuremberg] “It was a plea of ” superior orders ” in justification of a profession changing an ethical rule which we said would be the ” sinister echo ” not the superior orders themselves (in this case the provisions of the Abortion Act).”

BMJ. (Editorial) Ethics and Abortion (Response). Br Med J. 1968;2(5598):173.

(Editorial) Ethics and Abortion

British Medical Journal

Extract
So the B.M.A., representing most doctors in Britain, had clearly stated its views on the ethics of abortion. Parliament then made it legal for a doctor to terminate pregnancy on wider indications than the B.M.A. thought ethically permissible. Should the Association’s opinions on ethics be altered to bring them into line with the law? Posed with that question last week the Council decided that they should not (Supplement, p. 3), and the Representative Body is to be asked in June to ratify this decision . . . The principle at issue is fundamental if doctors are to preserve their right to call themselves professional men. A profession sets a standard of conduct for its members, and the essence of professional freedom for a doctor is his right to act in professional matters uninfluenced by any considerations other than the judgement of his fellows. Medical ethics are the collective conscience of the profession, and a plea of ” superior orders ” would be a sinister echo of some- thing that ended 20 years ago at Nuremberg.

BMJ. (Editorial) Ethics and Abortion. Br Med J. 1968;2(5596):3.

(Editorial) A Question of Conscience: BMJ comment

British Medical Journal

Extract
We have received so many letters on this subject, containing, often, repetitions of arguments already used by other correspondents, that we find it impossible to publish all. We print below abstracts of some of the communications.

The Author of Mona Maclean thinks that not many practitioners of her sex will agree with Miss Kenealy’s views. . . .

Surgeon-Captain O’Callaghan, A.M.S., congratulates Miss Kenealy -on her courage in formulating in written words one of the many questions of conscience that have perplexed many minds. . .

Mr. Lawson Tait (Birmingham), while thinking Miss Kenealy quite wrong in her line of action, finds ” T. C. A.’s” letter inconclusive and not philosophic. . .

E. E. W., writing as a woman, dependent on the honest and straightforward dealing of medical men, asks whether, in the case instanced by Miss Kenealy, it was not wrong to withhold treatment from the mother. . .

Mr. A. G. S. Mahomed (Bournemouth) considers that in the case instanced by her, Miss Kenealy failed in her duty, since, though she thought mercurials would improve the mother’s condition, she failed to prescribe them. . .

Mr. T. E. Constant (Scarborough), writing as one who is not a medical practitioner, is stirred by a perusal of Miss Kenealy’s letter to inquire whether ladies are fit for a profession so severely practical as that of medicine. . .

BMJ. (Editorial) A Question of Conscience: BMJ comment. Br Med J. 1895;2(1814):870-871.