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

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.

Medical Issues in Abortion Law Reform

Lord Brain

Extract
There remain for consideration some general problems to which very little attention has so far been paid. It is necessary to distinguish (1) the law relating to abortion, (2) professional ethics relating to abortion, and (3) individual ethical standards. Hitherto (1) and (2) have coincided, in that an offence against the law relating to abortion has also been treated as an offence against professional ethics. Personal ethical standards, however, may differ from those of the law or of the profession as a whole. If the law is relaxed the General Medical Council will presumably have to consider whether professional ethical standards should be correspondingly relaxed. Individual judgements, however, may well show a much wider range than in the past, when doctors who were not opposed to abortion in principle were usually prepared to accept the standards laid down by the Bourne judgement. . . Doctors will, of course, remain free to exercise their own judgements in these matters, and the same must apply to the nurses and others who have to cooperate with them.

Brain L. Medical Issues in Abortion Law Reform. Br Med J. 1966;1(5489):727-729.

The Problem of Social Control of the Congenital Defective: Education, Sterilization, Euthanasia

Foster Kennedy

Extract
. . . What to do with the hopelessly unfit? I had thought at a younger time of my life that the legalizing of euthanasia . . . Now my face is set against the legalization of euthanasia for any person, who, having been well, has at last become ill . . . But I am in favor of euthanasia for those hopeless ones who should never have been born-Nature’s mistakes.

. . . should the social organism grow up and forward to the desire to relieve decently from living the utterly unfit, sterilize the less unfit, and educate the still less unfit-then the Law must also grow, along with the amplitude of our new ideas for a wiser and better world, and fit the growing organism easily and well; and thereafter civilization will pass on and on in beauty.

Kennedy F. The Problem of Social Control of the Congenital Defective: Education, Sterilization, Euthanasia. Am J Psychiatry. 1942 Jul;99(1):13-16.