Journal Articles Archives - Page 63 of 64 - Protection of Conscience Project Library

Hill-Burton Hospitals After Roe and Doe: Can Federally Funded Hospitals Refuse to Perform Abortions?

Eugene L Berl

Extract
Conclusion
Public hospitals, by reason of the mandate of Roe and Doe, cannot categorically refuse to perform abortions. Similarly, under the state action doctrine, hospitals receiving federal funds pursuant to the Hill-Burton Act cannot refuse to perform abortions, notwithstanding the Health Programs Extension Act of 1973. The inter-relationsip of state and the hospital in the Hill-Burton program, with all the rights, duties and obligations incidental thereto, and the fact that the state and the hospital are joint participants in a state project undertaken for the benefit of the public, support the finding of state action. The Roe prohibition against state interference in a woman’s abortion decision, to be more than a mere cipher, must extend beyond state abortion statutes to the unwarranted refusal to perform abortions by hospitals with which the state is intimately involved.

Berl EL. Hill-Burton Hospitals After Roe and Doe: Can Federally Funded Hospitals Refuse to Perform Abortions? New York U Rev Law & Social Change. 1974;4(1):83-97.

Uterine injuries complicating hypertonic saline abortion

JJ Willems

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ — Canadian Medical Association Journal

Author Summary
Two cases of uterine injury complicating midtrimester abortion induced by hypertonic saline are described, one with an extensive laceration of the cervix and the other with a rupture of the lower uterine segment extending into the vault of the vagina. The etiology, diagnosis and possible obstetric sequelae are discussed. With the increasing number of therapeutic abortions being performed in North America there is a concomitant increase in associated complications being reported in the literature. This report describes two of the more uncommon and potentially more important complications encountered when amnioinfusion is employed for the induction of midtrimester abortion. [Details of 19 year old and 15 year old patients at 16 and 18 weeks gestation respectively].

Willems J. Uterine injuries complicating hypertonic saline abortion. Can Med Assoc J. 1974 Dec 07;111(11):1223-1226.

The unwanted pregnancy

Sharon H Stone, Kenneth E Scott

Authors’ Summary
A questionnaire was submitted to the mothers of 200 consecutively delivered infants; 15% of mothers were unmarried. The results showed a high prevalence of unwanted pregnancy, most accounted for by well educated, married women having their first or second baby, and despite access to contraceptive agents. Most of the married women and over 50% of the unmarried who had not wanted to become pregnant wanted the baby after its birth.

Stone SH, Scott KE. The unwanted pregnancy. Can Med Assoc J. 1974;111(10):1093-1097.

Constitutional Law: Private Hospital May Refuse to Perform Abortion

Betty Berger

Extract
Conclusion
It is evident that the abortion question in relation to private hospitals is being fought on two grounds. One ground is state action. The other is freedom of religion and moral conviction. Decisions are beginning to indicate that public hospitals may have to perform abortions if they have the facilities. On the other hand, decisions such as Bellin, indicate that courts may not find sufficient state action when a private hospital is involved even if that hospital has received public funds. Even if they do, Bellin indicates that the right of conscience may protect the private hospital which is also sectarian and opposed to abortion on religious and moral grounds.’ Furthermore, the United States Congress has established a policy that receipt of funds from Hill-Burton or any other programs covered by the Health Services Extension Act of 1973 should not force a hospital to provide personnel and facilities for abortions. In addition, the first amendment protects the rights of individuals and groups to refuse to do what their religion prohibits. Abortions are generally a convenience and not a matter of life and death if not performed in the private hospital. In the balance of convenience versus first amendment freedoms, courts are unlikely to let convenience prevail. Private hospitals have sold neither their rights nor their private status..

Berger B. Constitutional Law: Private Hospital May Refuse to Perform Abortion. Saint Louis U Law J. 1974;18(3): 440-460.

Outpatient management of first trimester therapeutic abortions with and without tubal ligation

JA Collins, HH Allen, AA Yuzpe

Abstract
In busy hospitals the increasing numbers of abortions must be performed without disturbing other hospital functions. Local anesthesia, vaginal tubal ligation and the use of outpatient beds are the operative and administrative adaptations described. Of 1545 abortions performed in Victoria Hospital, London, in 1971, 428 (32%) were done under local anesthesia; 14 of these patients also had vaginal tubal ligation under local anesthesia. There were 405 sterilizations (26.2%) among this group of patients, of which 390 (96.3%) were vaginal tubal ligations. Of the total number, 891 (57.7%) were dealt with as outpatients and these comprised 62.0% of patients having therapeutic abortion only, and 46.7% of patients having tubal sterilization as well as abortion.

Collins JA, Allen H, Yuzpe A. Outpatient management of first trimester therapeutic abortions with and without tubal ligation. Can Med Assoc J. 1972 May 20;106():1077-1080.

Impact on hospital practice of liberalizing abortions and female sterilizations

A David Clayman, John R Wakeford, John MM Turner,Brian Hayden

Abstract
The number of therapeutic abortions performed at the Vancouver General Hospital in 1969 was double the average number for the previous four years and in 1970 the total reached 1465. The more liberal attitude towards abortion has resulted in a decided reduction in the number of children available for adoption in the community. This policy has required a streamlining of the duties of the Therapeutic Abortion Committee and an alteration in the pattern of bed and operating-room utilization. By far the greatest number of abortions were performed on psychiatric-social grounds. The complication rate of 17% was influenced chiefly by the advanced duration of the gestation in a high proportion of cases. Gynecologists and hospitals must be prepared to assume their altered role in providing abortion and sterilization in today’s society.

Clayman AD, Wakeford JR, Turner JMM, Hayden B. Impact on hospital practice of liberalizing abortions and female sterilizations. Can Med Assoc J. 1971 Jul 10;105(1):35-41, 83.

Legalized abortion: the conscience clause and coercion

D Cavanaugh

No abstract available.

Cavanaugh D. Legalized abortion: the conscience clause and coercion. Hosp. Prog. 1971;52(8):86-90.

Therapeutic abortion in a Canadian city

RM Boyce, RW Osborn

Author Summary
In a city of 200,000, 119 therapeutic abortions were performed during the period 1962 to 1968. Multiple grounds were commonly given for abortion; these often included depression. Very frequently the absence of support from other people was a factor in deciding to perform abortion. Only five psychiatrists were involved in 82 cases seen in psychiatric consultation. Abortions carried out for more conventional medical reasons, including rubella, decreased in 1967 and 1968 but there was an overall increase beginning in 1967. In the later years of the study (1967-68) a higher proportion of patients were single, younger, had had no previous pregnancy and were aborted later in pregnancy; more were sterilized. A marked increase in abortion rate related particularly to the activity of one of the psychiatrists. One hundred and sixty-six abortions were performed in 1969; a comparable figure (179) was obtained from one other Canadian centre;another centre had performed more (291); two others, 109 and 63; the combined total for 27 other centres from whom replies were obtained was 186.

Boyce R, Osborn R. Therapeutic abortion in a Canadian city. Can Med Assoc J. 1970;103(5):461-466.

Responsibility and Conscience

Lynne Belaief

Extract
In philosophical ethics, if one asks the question, is ethics possible, it is inconveniently, and, I will argue, erroneously assumed that he has also raised the notorious problem, what is the definition of “the good”? Various confusions attend the latter inquiry, including the remarkably ambiguous insistence that “the good” cannot be defined – implying that one in fact knew a great deal about its meaning in order to know this. I here intend to reject this typical but inconvenient quest principally because all such initial inquiries into the definition of “the good” are potentially important only within a particular ethical perspective, which is already therefore presupposed as true. The logic and ethical value of that perspective, here named legalistic or authoritarian ethics, is to be contrasted with the perspective called creative ethics, and discarded.

Belaief L. Responsibility and Conscience. Philos Today. 1969;13(1):60-79.

Therapeutic Abortion: Report by the BMA Special Committee

British Medical Association

British Medical Journal, BMJ — British Medical Journal

Extract
The Special Committee of the British Medical Association was appointed by the Council on the instruction of the Representative Body, and first met in November 1965.* Its task was to bring up to date the Association’s earlier report of 1936. At the same time as the Committee began its task the House of Lords gave a second reading to an Abortion Bill promoted by Lord Silkin. The Committee therefore prepared, in January 1966, an interim report in the form of comments upon the clauses of this Bill. Simultaneously it sought information from 22 Commonwealth and foreign medical associations on the state of law and practice obtaining in their countries. The replies received have assisted materially in the preparation of the following definitive report on the legislative aspects of the problem. During the early months of 1966 a number of other important statements have appeared, notably the report of the Council of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and these too have been considered.

BMA. Therapeutic Abortion: Report by the BMA Special Committee. Br Med J. 1966;2(5504):40-44.