Journal Correspondence Archives - Page 14 of 29 - Protection of Conscience Project Library

(Correspondence) Life devoid of value?

Heiko Baunemann

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ — Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
Dr. Rapp’s distinction between human beings and “potential” human beings is mystifying. . . The fetus is not a “potential” human being; it is a human being with potential. . . the impetus for the mass killing of mental patients came not from the Nazis but from members of the medical profession. . . . the connection between abortion and euthanasia . . . is quite clear to other proabortionists [including] Joseph Fletcher, a member of the Euthanasia Education Council, and the late Dr. Alan Guttmacher, also a member of that council. . . Abortion and euthanasia are related by a common set of basic assumptions – that human life is not an absolute but rather a variable value that is socially determinable, and that it may be terminated. One form of euthanasia makes this particularly clear – the killing of the handicapped newborn. Arguments for abortion of mongoloid fetuses and mercy killing of mongoloid newborns are identical. . . .

Baunemann H. (Correspondence) Life devoid of value?. Can Med Assoc J. 1977;116(6):591-592.

(Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law

May Cohen, Wendell Watters, Linda Rapson

Extract
. . . risks are relative. A woman exposed to childbirth is at greater risk than a woman having an induced abortion . . . Blame for cervical lacerations sustained in the course of an induced abortion should be laid on the surgeon, not on the procedure. . . . .We are impressed by improvements in maternal and infant health reported in areas where safe legal abortions are relatively easy to obtain: mortality and morbidity from septic illegal abortion all but disappear and neonatal mortality plummets. . . While the state did not force her to have heterosexual intercourse, it is clearly intending her to remain pregnant against her will by making it impossible to interrupt a pregnancy she has tried to avoid. It is our view that abortion should be at the bottom of a list of options available to an unwillingly pregnant woman. . . . there needs to be a consensus among gynecologists as to the point during gestation when abortion is no longer an option. . . abortion is a nasty business. The answer to its elimination surely lies in . . . adequate sex education in our schools, and training programs in human sexuality and reproductive regulation in the curricula of our health care educational institutions.

Cohen M, Watters W, Rapson L. (Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law. Can. Med Assoc J. 1977 Feb 05;116(3):247, 250.

(Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law

PG Coffey

Extract
Dr. Loveridge states that the examples I quoted in my previous letter “are just not correct”. On the contrary, all the facts and figures I have given are correct and come from respectable sources [Gives details] . . .The reason that illegal abortions are not necessarily reduced in number and that the total number of abortions in- creases when a government legalizes abortion (and seemingly condones it) is that there are always a large number of women who prefer to have an abortion privately and a climate of abortion is created wherein large numbers of women consider abortion who would not otherwise have done so.

Coffey PG. (Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law. Can Med Assoc J. 1977 Feb 05;116(3):238.

(Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law

PG Coffey

Extract
. . . papers are continually being published pointing out the hazards in subsequent childbirth after an induced abortion. . . .There is a great deal of woolly thinking about the viability of the fetus. . . One can think of several other situations where humans are totally dependent on others for their continuing existence but are not considered expendable. . . I honestly think we tend to salve our consciences far too carelessly when we use the vague term “nonviability” as a reason for condoning the termination of lives that are far from inanimate.

Coffey PG. (Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law. Can Med Assoc J. 1977 Feb 05;116(3):238.

(Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law

MM Sereda

Extract
In the intensive care unit at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton a fetus weighing 720 g has survived and thrived. By definition, any fetus of that size or larger should be considered potentially viable. . . . . In Alberta in 1975 there were two abortions induced by saline infusion; the fetuses weighed 800 and 1250 g, respectively. These weights were discovered by accident because hospitals allowing abortions prohibit the weighing of aborted fetuses. In fact, one of the fetuses was rushed to an intensive care unit in Edmonton, so it must still have been alive. . . . There is no question that the Criminal Code needs amendment to accomplish two things: (a) to make recording of weights of aborted fetuses mandatory and (b) to make it possible to take criminal action against any doctor who kills a potentially viable fetus by abortion.

Sereda MM. (Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law. Can Med Assoc J. 1977 Feb 05;116(3):247.

(Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law

Margaret Wynn, Arthur Wynn

Extract
Your correspondents Dr. Coffey and Drs. Cohen, Rapson and Watters (ibid, page 213) all refer to our review, published over 4 years ago,1 of the consequences of induced abortion to children born subsequently. Much progress has since been made in Europe in preventing these consequences . . .

The main conclusions of our 1972 review have, indeed, been confirmed in many subsequent studies and more
recent reviews. It may reasonably be inferred from the Bristol study and from other European studies that between 20 and 25% of women who have had an induced abortion need a cerclage operation to be able to carry a subsequent pregnancy to term. The percentage may well be lower in Canada if a higher percentage of abortions are undertaken earlier in pregnancy. . .

It is important for any woman who hopes to have a child subsequent to an induced abortion to accept that she will then be in a high-risk category and must report a subsequent pregnancy early, and that she will need specialist obstetric care. . . .

Cohen and her colleagues describe us as “two crusaders for compulsory pregnancy”. This is untruthful abuse. Your correspondence columns might better be used to discuss the many steps that might be taken in Canada to reduce the unfortunate consequences of induced abortion, including the careful counselling of women and the wider use of the cerclage operation early enough in a subsequent pregnancy.

Wynn M, Wynn A. (Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law. Can Med Assoc J. 1977 Feb 05;116(3):241-243.

(Correspondence) Prenatal diagnosis of genetic disease (author reply)

Nancy E Simpson

Extract
None of us “advise” either prenatal diagnosis or therapeutic abortion; we attempt to inform the families of their risks and available options and help them make a decision in the light of their perception of the burden 0f the disease in question, the degree of their desire to have more children and their religious or ethical beliefs. . . . only 5% of the pregnancies: of women who underwent amniocentesis for prenatal diagnosis were selectively aborted, that the procedure served as reassurance for the parents of the fetus, and that in some cases, amniocentesis may have prevented therapeutic abortion being performed because of fear that the fetus was defective, when the fetus was in fact normal.

Simpson NE. (Correspondence) Prenatal diagnosis of genetic disease (author reply). Can Med Assoc J. 1977 Jan 22;116(2):134.

(Correspondence) Life devoid of value?

Heiko Baunemann

Extract
In “The Release of the Destruction of Life Devoid of Value” Hoche, a distinguished psychiatrist, and Binding, a highly respected jurist, persuasively developed the concept of “worthless human beings”, such as the hopelessly crippled, deformed and insane. They stressed the misery and futility of such unfortunate lives and the cruel economic burden they represented to their relatives and society. . . the legalization of abortion by the Canadian Parliament in 1969 have laid the foundation for the legalization of euthanasia, or the killing of people medically judged to be “incapable of meaningful life”, such as mongoloid idiots, imbeciles, the terminally ill, persons with senile melancholia, stroke victims living like “vegetables”, and – well, the sort of people, besides unwanted babies, who would be “better off dead”. Be patient: euthanasia is coming.

Baunemann H. (Correspondence) Life devoid of value?. Can Med Assoc J. 1976;115(11):1086.

(Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law

PG Coffey

Extract
The main thrust of the letter by Drs. Cohen, Rapson and Watters (Can Med Assoc J 114: 593, 1976) is that abortion is good medicine and should not be denied to certain groups of citizens. I think, on the other hand, that liberalized abortion is bad medicine and should be curtailed rather than encouraged. . . . It is becoming increasingly clear that abortion is a hazardous operation with far-reaching effects. . . . After some years abortion tends to be used as a birth control measure. Many women have more than one abortion. Legalizing abortion may not reduce greatly the illegal practice of it and some reports have shown that it has increased this practice.

Coffey PG. (Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law. Can Med Assoc J. 1976 Aug 07;115(3):213, 216.

(Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law (authors’ reply)

Wendell W Watters, May Cohen,Linda Rapson

Extract
On the issue of complications following legal abortion, Dr. Coffey quotes Jeffcoate, whose antiabortion views are widely known, and the Wynn report, a document compiled by two crusaders for “compulsory pregnancy’s who used data inappropriately in an attempt to substantiate their personal beliefs. . . Results of studies in Aberdeen, England and Sweden suggested that women denied a safe legal abortion – that is, the victims of compulsory pregnancy – were more likely to experience emotional distress than women who were allowed to exercise reproductive responsibility by the use of the option of legal abortion. In other words, compulsory pregnancy is bad medicine. Dr. Coffey makes another statement that is contradicted by modern evidence. The notion that abortion tends to be used as a method of primary birth control does not square with the evidence from the Population Council . . . .We can trace the enactment of antiabortion laws throughout history to policies of demographic aggression. . . .the Quebec government, in a state of demographic panic over its low birth rate, harassing our colleague Dr. Henry Morgentaler; and Canada competing demographically with the United States: all such irresponsible behaviour is potentially more lethal than nuclear holocaust. For almost a decade the United Nations has granted people the world over the right to plan their families without any interference from the state. This is a paper right until it extends, de facto as well as de jure, beyond conception to the point of potential viability.

Watters WW, Cohen M, Rapson L. (Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law (authors’ reply). Can Med Assoc J. 1976 Aug 07;115(3).