I feel myself in broad agreement with the answers given by Mr. Philip Rhodes (2 April, p. 859) to Lord Brain’s points, with the exception of his categorical ” No ” to the question, ” Should the fact that a pregnancy is the result of rape be a ground for its legal termination ? ” . . .I feel that rape per se should be a ground for legal abortion, but at the same time it is important that the flood-gates to abuse should not be opened wide.
I am grateful to Lord Brain (19 March, p. 727) for putting the points in this matter so clearly. Since you ask for wide discussion I put my personal answers to the questions. . . My answers to the questions are necessarily brief for the considerations of your space. A general comment would be that the law needs reform for the sake of the law and not medicine. I have performed abortions for what I and my colleagues have considered to be good reasons. I do not like to perform the operation, and those who assist me like it even less. . .
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.
