Protection of Conscience Project Library
Service, not Servitude
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The attitude of psychiatrists to abortion is reminiscent of the attitude of dentists to fluoridation. It is my belief that the wide application of both proposals would result in much less work for dentists and for psychiatrists.
Boulding J. (Correspondence) Abortion. Can Med Assoc J. 1970;103(6):645-646.
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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.
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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:
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. . . 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?
Coffey P. (Correspondence) Therapeutic Abortion. Can Med Assoc J. 1970 Jan 17;102(1):90-91.
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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.
Chisholm N. (Correspondence) Abortion Act Amendment. Br Med J. 1969 Sep 27;3(5673):783. Available from:
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. . . the popular demand for abortion in our present permissive society is hardly going to decrease, and if the B.M.A. and Royal College are successful in their present efforts the entire abortion demand will then be directed solely at the N.H.S. consultants and the N.H.S. hospital beds to the detriment of both. The essential point, surely, is that the Act as it stands is a bad Act and no amount of piecemeal tinkering will make it better.
Jones G. (Correspondence) Pregnancy Termination. Br Med J. 1969 Aug 02;3(5665):297.
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It follows that any practitioner, whose treatment of pregnancy is interfered with by a colleague without his knowledge or against his advice, has a perfect right to make a complaint to the Central Ethical Committee of the B.M.A..
Sturdy D, Browne R. (Correspondence) Abortion Act in Practice. Br Med J. 1969;2(5654):447.
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I think we must all be a little tired of the diatribes from some members of the medical profession in the press and on television against the Abortion Act. There are quite a number who find it is satisfactory. . . We see these patients at clinics, and we take them into National Health Service hospitals, either maternity units or gynaecological units, and whenever possible do the operation personally… I am a little amazed at the howls of protest that it is interfering with the ordinary work of units and outpatient clinics. . . .I have not, as yet, found that it is making my waiting-list longer or interfering with the intake of patients into the maternity units.
Soldenhoff RD. (Correspondence) Abortion Act in Practice. Br Med J. 1969 Apr 05;51.
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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.
Sim M. (Correspondence) Abortion Act in Practice. Br Med J. 1969 Apr 5;2(5648):50-51.
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In fact, the London-based Pregnancy Advisory Service, the only one about which I can speak with authority, is a registered charity run on similar lines to the Family Planning Association. It employs a full-time social worker and doctors on a sessional basis who advise patients who have not been able to obtain a sympathetic hearing from their own doctors, or those who, in increasing numbers, have actually been sent to us by their family doctors because, although they have grounds for abortion under the Abortion Act, the local consultants are unable or unwilling to accept most abortion cases, and the patients cannot afford the fees charged for abortions in regular private practice…
Abels SR. (Correspondence) Pregnancy Advisory Services. Br Med J. 1969;1(5642):506.