Malcolm N Beck Archives - Protection of Conscience Project Library

J Philip Welch

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ — Canadian Medical Association Journal

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.

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.