Journal Correspondence Archives - Page 7 of 24 - Protection of Conscience Project Library

(Correspondence) Clinicians who provide abortions: the thinning ranks

Denis Cavanaugh

Extract
Dr. Grimes identifies abortion as “the most divisive social issue of our time,” but he is contributing to the divisiveness by raising these issues in those of us who consider elective abortion a social evil as well as a “distasteful chore.” Abortionists don’t have all the altruism, and if elective abortion were not a billiondollar- a-year business, there would be even fewer volunteers. . .the legal entitlement of a woman to elective abortion cannot be absolute to the extent of suppressing the values and conscience of her physician, so there is no reason why a resident should have an obligation to perform such abortions.

Cavanaugh D. (Correspondence) Clinicians who provide abortions: the thinning ranks. Obst Gyn. 1993 February;81(2):318-319

(Correspondence) Readers Advocate Pro-conscience, Not Pro-Choice (Invited response)

Susan Wysocki

Extract
A nurse practitioner’s personal position on this issue is irrelevant in tem1s of the provision of patient care. Our responsibility as nurse practitioners is to provide our patients with information that helps them to make their own decisions based on the constructs of their own beliefs and needs. This does not mean that nurse practitioners who find a patient’s reproductive-health decisions to be in conflict with their own morals and beliefs should be forced to counsel on those choices. Instead, they have a responsibility to ensure that the patient has her needs met with another provider.

Wysocki S. (Correspondence) Readers Advocate Pro-conscience, Not Pro-Choice (Invited response). Nurse Pract. 1992 Oct;17(10):8-9

(Correspondence) Readers Advocate Pro-conscience, Not Pro-choice

(Author reply)

Lynn C Barnard

Extract
“Let those nurses who oppose abortion and choice dedicate their energies to the development of a societal system that truly cares for women and will support their decisions – no matter what they are.”

Barnard LC. (Correspondence) Readers Advocate Pro-conscience, Not Pro-choice (Author reply). Nurse Pract. 1992;17(10):8

(Correspondence) Responsibility and abortion

Glenn Jones

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ — Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
Termination of pregnancy is the act of a powerful person (the pregnant woman) against a voiceless, innocent and powerless person. How does the misuse of power by women in this situation prove that their androgynous and gynocentric approaches to the use of power are different or better? . . . I agree with McEvoy that we must determine what abortion means over time to those most affected by it – women. However, she has failed to do that analysis.

Jones G. (Correspondence) Responsibility and abortion. Can Med Assoc J. 1992 Sep 15;147(6):840-842.

(Correspondence) L’avortement eugénique

Paul de Bellefeuille

Extract
[Translation] Too bad that by making the distinction between abortion (eugenic or selective) and abortion that is not not, he made at least two readers believe that he approves of the second. Sorry as I am for being one of those readers, I am delighted to be mistaken.

de Bellefeuille P. (Correspondence) L’avortement eugénique. Can. Med. Assoc. J.. 1991;144(6):641. Available from:

(Correspondence) Abortion and the DPG ratio

Brian A Shamess

Extract
The question he must answer is, If the fetus is a human being (which indeed he or she is), what should he do? If a woman came in telling him that she was going to kill her 2-day-old baby, would he sit back not wanting to play “godlet”?

Shamess BA. (Correspondence) Abortion and the DPG ratio. Can Med Assoc J. 1991 Feb 01;144(3):277.

(Correspondence) Eugenic abortion: an ethical critique

J Philip Welch

Extract
The facts Beck presents are frequently flawed and perverted to secure the impression he seeks to convey. For example, the effects of rubella during pregnancy were not “newly demonstrated” in 1967 but had been known for a quarter of a century. . . Beck’s distinction between abortion on the grounds of genetic abnormality and abortion carried out because the pregnancy is unwelcome appears to imply acceptance of the latter and puts him in a curious position. . . Beck attempts to discredit amniocentesis by quoting rare single case reports of damage presumed to be due to needle puncture, none of which were reported in the past 8 years and most of which occurred before the general use of real-time ultrasound monitoring. . . . Beck maintains that physicians should not be involved in prenatal screening for genetic anomalies or in the termination of a pregnancy involving a fetus with an abnormality of this type. . . Concomitantly, Beck apparently approves of the killing of normal fetuses in iatrogenically engineered multiple pregnancy.

Welch JP. (Correspondence) Eugenic abortion: an ethical critique. Can Med Assoc J. 1991 Jan 01;144(1):8-9.

(Correspondence) Eugenic abortion: an ethical critique

Paul de Bellefeuille

Extract
[Translation] Dr. Beck makes an eloquent plea against eugenic abortion. It is based on the right of the infant suffering genetic malformation to continue to develop until birth. But all children, even the normal ones, have this right morally if not legally; I am surprised that Beck’s solicitude does not extend to these.

de Bellefeuille P. (Correspondence) Eugenic abortion: an ethical critique. Can Med Assoc J. 1991;144(1):12.

(Correspondence) Eugenic abortion: an ethical critique

Malcolm N Beck

Extract
I wished to avoid discussion of abortion in unplanned and unwanted pregnancies in order to bring some sharpness of focus to my paper. The conclusion that I favour early abortion for trivial reasons is decidedly mistaken. . . . I agree with Welch that not advising patients about amniocentesis renders physicians culpable in law. This is, as my paper suggests, a highly undesirable but predictable result of genetic abortion. I therefore strongly urge all physicians and the CMA to rescind their approval of these destructive procedures, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the traditional role of medicine. . . I sincerely hope, however, that we never accept the philosophic position that “there are no right and wrong decisions.” To do so would be to disassociate ourselves from the historical, philosophic and moral stance of our profession. . . . The practice of selective feticide involves the destruction (one could more accurately say murder) of the fetus to assuage the distressed and anguished response of the mother and father (and society) to the birth of a handicapped child. If this is not a eugenic procedure, then the word has lost all meaning. . . .

Beck MN. (Correspondence) Eugenic abortion: an ethical critique. Can Med Assoc J. 1991;144(1):12-13.

(Correspondence) The fetus as a person

Patrick G Coffey

Extract
Some people, however, would argue that an early human being does not become a “person” till sometime after birth, and others would argue that this time has arrived when fetal brain waves are recordable (about 6 weeks). Obviously, any point along the way, including the 23-week mark, is arbitrary and depends on each person’s perspective. . . surely it is not just or scientific to choose some arbitrary time.

Coffey PG. (Correspondence) The fetus as a person. Can Med Assoc J. 1990 Dec 01;143(11):1156.