Protection of Conscience Project Library

The Americans’ higher-law thinking behind higher lawmaking

Joyce Appleby

Extract
Bruce Ackerman’s “We The People: Transformations” is elegantly conceived, theoretically clever, rhetorically inventive, and empirically convincing, but it remains ideologically inadequate. . . . In the absence of attention to how people in the United States have come to think about a higher law, Ackerman has fallen back on a Whiggish view where love of liberty and justice is assumed to be part of the human endowment, at least of American humans. Fused convictions about democratic governance and liberal aspirations motivate Ackerman’s We the People. . . . This Whiggish overlay upon the argument of Transformations appears most strikingly in the discussion of Reconstruction, in which all acts are optimized-whether those of intransigent Radical Republicans or white supremacist Southern Redeemers. Some higher force is orchestrating this partisan cacophony into a melodious resolution. . . . I will pose the proposition that two higher law concepts have polarized American politics from Alexander Hamilton through Ronald Reagan, and that they need to be put into the picture of Ackerman’s grand transformative moments.

Appleby J. The Americans’ higher-law thinking behind higher lawmaking. Yale Law J. 1999;108(8):1995-2001.

Human rights and abortion laws

Rebecca J Cook, Bernard M Dickens

International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics

Abstract
Human rights protections have developed to resist governmental intrusion in private life and choices. Abortion laws have evolved in legal practice to protect not fetuses as such but state interests, particularly in prenatal life. National and international tribunals are increasingly called upon to resolve conflicts between state enforcement of continuation of pregnancy against women’s wishes and women’s reproductive choices. Legal recognition that human life begins at conception does not resolve conflicts between respect due to women’s reproductive self-determination and due to prenatal life. Human rights protect healthcare providers’ claims to conscientious objection, but not at the cost of women’s lives and enduring health.

Cook RJ, Dickens BM. Human rights and abortion laws. Int J Gynecol Obstet. 1999 Apr 22;65(81-87.

(News) US antiabortion pamphlet stirs anger north of the border

Patrick Sullivan

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ — Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
An American antiabortion publication that was mailed to Canadian physicians has angered many Ontario doctors and caused Queen’s University to contact police. The 32-page pamphlet, Quack the Ripper , was mailed by Life Dynamics Inc. of Denton, Texas, in March. . . the publication’s goal is to dissuade young physicians from providing abortions by insulting those who do perform them.

Sullivan P. US antiabortion pamphlet stirs anger north of the border. Can Med Assoc J. 1999;160(7):977.

International Developments in Abortion Law from 1988 to 1998

Rebecca J Cook, Bernard M Dickens, Laura E Bliss

Abstract
Objectives
In 2 successive decades since 1967, legal accommodation of abortion has grown in many countries. The objective of this study was to assess whether liberalizing trends have been maintained in the last decade and whether increased protection of women’s human rights has influenced legal reform.

Methods
A worldwide review was conducted of legislation and judicial rulings affecting abortion, and legal reforms were measured against governmental commitments made under international human rights treaties and at United Nations conferences.

Results
Since 1987, 26 jurisdictions have extended grounds for lawful abortion, and 4 countries have restricted grounds. Additional limits on access to legal abortion services include restrictions on funding of services, mandatory counseling and reflection delay requirements, third party authorizations, and blockades of abortion clinics.

Conclusions
Progressive liberalization has moved abortion laws from a focus on punishment toward concern with women’s health and welfare and with their human rights. However, widespread maternal mortality and morbidity show that reform must be accompanied by accessible abortion services and improved contraceptive care and information.

Cook RJ, Dickens BM, Bliss LE. International Developments in Abortion Law from 1988 to 1998. Am J Public Health. 1999;89(4):579-586.

(News) Police task force targets “terrorists” behind sniper-style attacks on MDs

Barbara Sibbald

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

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

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

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

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

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.