Protection of Conscience Project Library
Service, not Servitude
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:
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.
Extract
It is good that in their sympathetic article (Can Med Assoc J 1989; 140: 799-801, 805) Drs. Ruth Stirtzinger and G. Erlick Robinson remind us that “for [the mother] this has been the loss of a baby”. But in their review they incidentally say that in a group of women described by Simon and associates’ “there were no reported cases of psychiatric symptoms attributable to therapeutic abortion [emphasis mine]”. This statement is not made in the article quoted. Simon and associates wrote that “the amount of psychopathology seen following spontaneous abortion over the same 10 year follow-up period is minor when compared to the therapeutic abortion group”.
de Bellefeuille P. (Correspondence) The psychologic effects of spontaneous abortion. Can. Med. Assoc. J.. 1989;141(6):508-511.
Extract
[Translation] It is obvious that the policy does not appeal to the majority of physicians. They would prefer a regime where the life and health of the child are respected and protected in the same way as those of the mother. It is not about a choice between the two.
de Bellefeuille P. (Correspondence) L’avortement. Can Med Assoc J. 1989;140(6):585-586.
Extract
The Canadian Medical Association’s policy summary on abortion must be questioned. Although the summary may represent the consensus of some people at the executive level, it does not correspond to the views of the majority of CMA members. . . . medical problems require medical solutions; and when an expectant mother has medical difficulties the medical solution in good contemporary obstetrics is almost never termination of the pregnancy. The solution to socioeconomic problems must also be socioeconomic. To propose medical solutions for socioeconomic problems, and destructive ones at that, is illogical and shows a sad lack of confidence in our society’s ability to care for its own.
de Bellefeille P. The abortion of thinking. Can Med Assoc J. 1986;134(2):115-117.
Extract
I find the CMA abortion survey disturbing and completely unsatisfying. Without exception, all the questions assume that abortion is acceptable and can therefore be neatly compartmentalized to facilitate its performance. Nothing could be further who initially did not want their babies did want them once they were born,’ some individuals may ignore this normal evolution of maternal feelings. . . . slightly more than half of the respondents would refuse to terminate a pregnancy solely at the “woman’s request”. . . . Everyone knows that few, if any, terminations of pregnancy are therapeutic, although many are pathogenic. . .
de Bellefeuille P. (Correspondence) The CMA abortion survey. Can Med Assoc J. 1983;129(12):1259-1260.