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0 - Protection of Conscience Project Library
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(News) Police task force targets “terrorists” behind sniper-style attacks on MDs

Barbara Sibbald

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ
Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
Sniper-style attacks on 3 Canadian physicians are “terrorist acts,” police say,and the hunt for the attackers now involves a coordinated national effort. “This is terrorism against doctors as a whole,” says Inspector Keith McCaskill, a member of the national police task force investigating the attacks. “There may be a tendency to politicize this, but that’s not right. This is criminal activity.”


Sibbald B. Police task force targets “terrorists” behind sniper-style attacks on MDs. Can Med Assoc J. 1998 Nov 03;159(9):1153-1154.

(Correspondence) Abortion in proportion (The author responds)

Lynda Buske

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ
Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
Canada’s comparative ranking in terms of the proportion of therapeutic abortions involving married women should not have been described as a rate. The point being made in the paragraph in question is that the proportion of women receiving abortions in Canada who are either married or in common-law relationships, about 25%, is not unique in international terms.


Buske L. (Correspondence) Abortion in proportion (The author responds). Can Med Assoc J. 1998;159(4):318.

Abortion and the married woman

Lynda Buske

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ
Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
Most Canadian women who have abortions are single, but a recent Statistics Canada study indicates that more than a quarter of them (26.7%) were either married or in a common-law relationship.


Buske L. Abortion and the married woman. Can Med Assoc J. 1998;159(4):992.

The Moral Reasoning of HEC* Members (*Hospital Ethics Committee)

Donnie J Self, Joy D Skeel

HEC Forum
HEC Forum

Extract
It appears that on many characteristics there are significant differences among members and non-members of HECs. Whether it be a self-selection bias or some other factor, whatever is at work on the composition of HECs seems to have a profound effect pulling toward homogeneity of the membership. This is not necessarily bad if it leads to the best ethical thinking in the institution. It does, however, give pause for thought considering the current widespread emphasis on cultural diversity in society. If diversity is thought to be desirable, is such homogeneity within HECs appropriate?


Self DJ, Skeel JD. The Moral Reasoning of HEC* Members (*Hospital Ethics Committee). HEC Forum. 1998 Mar;10(1):43-54.

Refusal of Treatment by an Adolescent: The Deliverances of Different Consciences

Sally L Webb, Mary Faith Marshall, Flint Boettcher, Marty Perlmutter

HEC Forum
HEC Forum

Extract
Introduction
This paper describes and analyzes a problematic fictionalized case in health care ethics. Inherent in the case is the complex interplay between adolescent decision-making, clinical uncertainty and religious beliefs that most health care providers find alien and that challenge their professional norms. The paper examines the way the case unfolded, paying special attention to the “consciences” of the health care providers involved in the case, and ends with a few reflections on some of the conflicts of conscience that emerged.


Webb SL, Marshall MF, Boettcher F, Perlmutter M. Refusal of Treatment by an Adolescent: The Deliverances of Different Consciences. HEC Forum. 1998 Mar;10(1):9-23.

Insider Trading: Conscience and Critique in Bioethics

Laurie Zoloth-Dorfman, Susan B Rubin

HEC Forum
HEC Forum

Extract
The problem of conscience in ethics consultation is a central part of the creation and selection of the particular standards to which we hold ourselves accountable and the very process by which we come to know,choose, and act on what is right. Finding such standards and agreeing on how to maintain personal and professional integrity forces each of us to regard in the most serious terms the core issues of our work and its meaning. And though external sources such as our profession, religion, or community may all at times influence our sense of appropriate and inappropriate behavior, on some level, each of us must also face these questions personally. At a certain point, we face a confrontation with what we are culturally shaped by modernity to “see” as our own privatized internal guide – our conscience. Turning towards conscience is turning towards a particular kind of confrontation with ourselves.


Zoloth-Dorfman L, Rubin SB. Insider Trading: Conscience and Critique in Bioethics. HEC Forum. 1998 March;10(1):24-33.

There Is No Moral Authority in Medicine: Response to Cowdin and Tuohey

John F Crosby

Christian Bioethics
Christian Bioethics

Abstract
Central to the Cowdin-Tuohey paper is the concept of a moral authority proper to medical practitioners. Much as I agree with the authors in refusing to degrade doctors to the status of mere technicians, I argue that one does not succeed in retrieving the moral dimension of medical practice by investing doctors with moral authority. I show that none of the cases brought forth by Cowdin-Tuohey really amounts to a case of moral authority. Then I try to explain why no such cases can be found. Developing an insight that is common to all the major moral thinkers in the philosophia perennis, I show that doctors are professionally competent with respect only to a part of the human good; morally wise persons are competent with respect to that which makes man good as man. I try to show why it follows that a) professional expertise has no natural tendency to pass over into moral understanding, and that b) doctor and non-doctor alike start from the same point in developing their understanding of medical morality. It follows that the authors fail in their attempt to de-center the moral magisterium of the Church by setting up centers of moral authority outside of the Church.


Crosby JF. There Is No Moral Authority in Medicine: Response to Cowdin and Tuohey. Christ Bioet. 1998 Jan 01;4(1):63-82.