Protection of Conscience Project Library

Fetal rights: Supreme Court tosses ball back in Parliament’s court

Eike-Henner Kluge

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ — Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
The case is of interest to doctors, but not because it deals with midwifery and its legality in Canada – the Supreme Court decision is silent on that point. At issue was the status of the human fetus: Is a full-term human fetus that is partially born a person in the eyes of the criminal law? The court decided it is not. . . . The Supreme Court has decided this case on very narrow legal grounds and it has carefully avoided coming to grips with the issue of whether a fetus is a person in the eyes of the law. This is not surprising. On several occasions, such as cases involving Morgentaler5 and Daigle,6 the Supreme Court has made clear that the status of the fetus should not be resolved in court – the court is not prepared to do Parliament’s work.

Kluge E-H. Fetal rights: Supreme Court tosses ball back in Parliament’s court. Can Med Assoc J. 1991 May 01;144(9):1154-1155.

(Correspondence) L’avortement eugénique

Paul de Bellefeuille

Extract
[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:

(News) Kill the bill, CMA tells Senate committee studying abortion law

Patrick Sullivan

Extract
A “chilling effect” brought about by federal abortion legislation may be the reason almost 1 in 10 physicians who had been performing abortions in Canada in 1989 stopped providing the service in 1990, a CMA survey indicates. . . . The data also confirm an earlier CMA estimate that 50 to 80 physicians have stopped performing abortions since Bill C-43 was tabled . . . . “The Canadian Medical Association is unequivocally opposed to Bill C-43,” she said, noting that the CMA was not alone . . .

Sullivan P. Kill the bill, CMA tells Senate committee studying abortion law. Can Med Assoc J. 1991;144(4):496, 499.

(Correspondence) Abortion and the DPG ratio

Brian A Shamess

Extract
The question he must answer is, If the fetus is a human being (which indeed he or she is), what should he do? If a woman came in telling him that she was going to kill her 2-day-old baby, would he sit back not wanting to play “godlet”?

Shamess BA. (Correspondence) Abortion and the DPG ratio. Can Med Assoc J. 1991 Feb 01;144(3):277.

Euthanasia and related taboos

Eike-Henner Kluge

Extract
Like it or not, physicians are going to be reading a lot about euthanasia in the next few years. . . . Many physicians are more or less comfortable with the idea of withholding or withdrawing “medically useless” treatment. In other words, they accept passive euthanasia. . . . .If the medical profession thinks a physician might become responsible for a patient’s death through inaction, but without automatically bearing moral guilt, why does it insist that a physician who becomes responsible for the death of a patient through action automatically becomes morally guilty? . . . Medical ethics should never be decided by consensus or because of what is politically expedient. . .I am not making a plea for active euthanasia. I am suggesting that Canadian physicians should look at this issue honestly and openly.

Kluge E-H. Euthanasia and related taboos. Can Med Assoc J. 1991 Feb 01;144(3):359-360.

(Correspondence) Abortion and the DPG ratio

Lee Isaacs

Extract
Dr. Arsenault’s reasonable and logical protest that abortion is a case of doctor playing God is countered not by reason but by a humorous anecdote: style versus logic.

Isaacs L. (Correspondence) Abortion and the DPG ratio. Can Med Assoc J. 1991 Feb 1;143(3):277.

Giving death a helping hand

Mina Gasser Battagin

Extract
Can Christians accept martyrdom on the one hand and reject euthanasia on the other? What makes one form of killing acceptable, the other reprehensible? What judgements are to be made, for example, if, during childbirth, a choice must be made between saving the life of the child or the life of the mother? How do we decide whose life is more important and, therefore, whose life must be saved? Who has the most to lose or the most to gain? What is fair? And who makes that decision?

Battagin MG. Giving death a helping hand. Can Med Assoc J. 1991;144(3):358-359.

(Correspondence) Eugenic abortion: an ethical critique

J Philip Welch

Extract
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.

(Correspondence) Eugenic abortion: an ethical critique

Paul de Bellefeuille

Extract
[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.

(Correspondence) Eugenic abortion: an ethical critique

Malcolm N Beck

Extract
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.