1990
Bernabe-Garrido MT. [Terminal care, conscience and rights]
Soins Chir 1990 Feb;(108):39-44 [Article in French] PMID: 2377843
Kluge EH. CMA's Code of Ethics: The CMA
responds. CMAJ 1990; 143 (2) 88-89.
Eike-Henner Kluge
- Dr. Brown raises a very interesting and very important question
about the relation between the CMA's Code of Ethics, the Hippocratic
Oath and the various policies that the CMA has adopted on matters such
as abortion.
The current CMA policy and, incidentally, that of the British
Medical Association, the American Medical Association and most other
medical associations all over the world - defines an induced abortion
as the deliberate termination of a pregnancy before fetal viability. .
.
Lancet 1990 Sep 22;336(8717):720 (Editorial)
Conscience and complicity.
PMID: 1975897
H.J. Rieger
Riis P.
Why mask a good conscience as a bad conscience?
Intern Med 1990 Aug;228(2):77-8 (Editorial) Comment on: J Intern Med. 1990
Aug;228(2):139-45. PMID: 2394973
Povl Riis
- The present issue of the Journal of Internal Medicine contains a
contribution by Asplund & Britton on the important topic of '
do-not-resuscitate ' orders in medical departments.
Asplund & Britton's work follows a previous contribution on the topic
of stopping treatment, published in this journal, concerning the thorough
analysis by Kjellstrand of prolonging life or allowing death in patients
undergoing long-term dialysis treatment. . .
H. Rozemond
E. Tobin Shiers
- On May 12, 1989, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA or "the Board")
dismissed an appeal by a citizen of the People's Republic of China
concerning the denial of his applications for asylum and for "withholding
of deportation." The Chinese citizen, a thirty-three year-old man named
Chang, based his appeal on China's "one couple, one child" policy,
arguing that his applications should have been granted because the policy
would require him to be sterilized upon his return to China since he and
his wife had two children and refused to agree to limit the size of their
family. . .
R.A. Schröck
- Abstract: The roots of professional power and authority
lie in the claim to a specific kind of knowledge, the 'knowledge that' and
the 'knowledge how'. These kinds of knowledge are included in the notion of
'science'. 'Knowledge why'- the justification for a professional action -
demands a moral argument in terms of what is known and can be done (taking
'scientific' knowledge into account) but most importantly asking whether it
ought to be done. It is important to ask how a nurse acquires the 'knowledge
why' and thereby the means to justify his/her conduct in moral terms. This
paper considers the norms of professional conduct, the professional mandate
and the determination of what is, to the best of the professional's
knowledge and conscience, the right act. The question is raised whether an
appeal to the individual conscience can be a reliable guide to a morally
justifiable action. An exploration of moral perceptions, moral reasoning and
moral argument needs to be part of a professional education which requires a
certain kind of courage on part of both teachers and students.
J.E. Tyson
Warden J. BMJ 1990 Jan 20;300(6718):145 (News)
Conscience clause. PMID:
11642821
John Warden
- The Commons social services committee has begun an inquiry into the
operation of the conscience clause in the 1967 Abortion Act. This
states that no persons shall be under any duty to participate in
treatment under the act to which they have a conscientious objection.
The issue arose over advertisements last year for consultant posts that
referred to termination duties, in breach of departmental guidelines.
Before the committee last week departmental witnesses agreed that it was
possible that there could be discrimination against doctors and nurses in
the operation of the clause. But since 1986 only four complaints had
been received about the issue, with a rise to 16 last year that was
prompted by the advertisements. The select committee, by contrast, has
been inundated with written submissions, many of them from NHS staff
under confidentiality. One wrote: "I hope to declare my identity as
soon as I have been appointed a consultant obstetrician and
gynaecologist." . . .
Warden J. BMJ 1990 Nov 3;301(6759):1013 (Letter)
Abortion and conscience.
PMID: 11642801
John Warden
- One certainty of the fourth and possibly final session of this
parliament is that reform of the abortion law will not be a feature.
After 20 years of failed attempts to amend the 1967 Abortion Act the
issue is settled for the time being. The royal assent to the Human
Fertilisation and Embryology Bill sets the course for a marked relaxation
of Britain's abortion law. . . By way of consolation in its darkest hour,
the antiabortion lobby thinks that it has gained some ground with regard
to stiffening the conscience clause in the Abortion Act. In a report
last week the House of Commons Social Services Committee accepted the
evi? dence that discrimination does take place against doctors and
nurses because of their antiabortion views, though it is difficult to
prove. . .
John Warden
- Eight non-politically motivated doctors lined up as witnesses before
the Commons social services committee last week. Four were liberal and
four were conservative. Note the small "l" and the small "c," since these
are not party labels but denote attitudes towards the Abortion Act and
the operation of the conscience clause.
The issue is one that disturbs and divides the profession perhaps more
than it realises, and certainly more than the Department of Health
realised from the bland evidence it produced, based on deceptively few
com? plaints (20 January, p 145). Judging from the balance of evidence
the committee has received there is a strong likelihood that it will
propose changes in the operation of the conscience clause because it
tends to disadvantage doctors who invoke it as well as women who
seek a termination. . .