Protection of Conscience Project Library
Service, not Servitude
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[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:
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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.
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[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.
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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.
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In response to Dr. Myre Sim’s shopworn fulminations (Can Med Assoc 11988; 138: 742- 743), I am one doctor who has been off the fence and on firm ground for some time on the matter of abortion. . . The key to reducing the problem of ethically troublesome abortions remains quick, easy access to abortion, which includes improvement in the early identification of genetic defects. The key to reducing the numbers of abortions includes increasing awareness of the still dire need of children for information about sex, sexuality and birth control and increasing promotion of ethics as an object of study in school.
Cragg CE. (Correspondence) Abortion: it is time for doctors to get off the fence. Can Med Assoc J. 1988 Jul 16;139(2):99.
AT Kerigan
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Dr. Hall highlights what is surely the central issue in abortion because of fetal abnormalities – that is, does one consider the unborn child to be a person, with all the attendant rights we claim for ourselves? Dr. Hall believes that the fetus is not a patient. This is a position many of us in the medical profession profoundly disagree with. The fetus is regarded as a patient worthy of treatment such as intrauterine transfusions. I am not minimizing the problems . . . of a child with spina bifida, especially for the mother. My sympathies lie very much with her, but not to the exclusion of her child. . .
Kerigan AT. (Correspondence) Hazards of prenatal detection of neural tube defects. Can Med Assoc J. 1979 Apr 21;120(8):913-914.
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The assumption that abortion is the treatment of choice for a neural tube defect, regardless of its severity, is implicit in both the physician’s offering the screening service and the parents’ acceptance of it. . . . If the physician was prepared to take the child’s life before birth, can he legitimately refuse to do so after birth if requested? . . . prenatal decision-making cannot be disassociated from post-natal decision-making. They are of the same order logically and ethically. To my mind both abortion and infanticide are unacceptable and represent a concept that is a huge step backwards for the medical profession . . . .
Kerigan AT. (Correspondence) Hazards of prenatal detection of neural tube defects. Can Med Assoc J. 1978 Oct 07;119(7):696.
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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.
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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.
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Dr. Doran said that there are now 12 centres in Canada where genetic amniocentesis is performed, including his own group in Toronto which has done 195 in less than three years. The overall goal of the technique, he said, is to reduce genetic disease by therapeutic abortion (technically illegal under the present Criminal Code) and eventually by prevention.
Woods D. CFPC discusses changing world of the family physician. Can Med Assoc J. 1974 Oct 05;111(7):717-719.