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  • Title: Abortion (Amendment) Bill.
    Author: Dundon S.
    Journal: Lancet; 1980 Feb 23; 1(8165):429. PubMed ID: 6101885.
    Abstract:
    Your editorial of Jan. 26 and the multi-signatory letter in your issue of Feb. 2 support the 1967 Abortion Act and suggest that Mr. Corrie's Bill is a retrograde step. The implication is that our professional knowledge should lead us to that conclusion. To take the opposite view risks being regarded as a member of a pressure group or a conscientious objector, but to remain silent might be construed as being in agreement. As I see it the great majority of people of varying ethnic groups, including those adhering to the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faiths, subscribe to a behavioral code which regards human life as sacred: to take a life is to be countenanced only to save another. Abortion should be regarded as taking human life and morally wrong; making abortion legal does not make it morally right. Doctors are in a very difficult position, and cannot, no more than politicians can, make moral decisions for other people. Traditionally, however, the profession has a role in the responsibility for protection of life, and perhaps the public have a right to expect this protection. Human life begins at conception and some human rights begin at this time. Life (and its protection) seems to be a most basic right. The World Medical Association, in the Declaration of Oslo (1970), stated: "1. The first moral principle imposed upon the doctor is respect for human life as expressed in a clause of the Declaration of Geneva: 'I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception.'" The 1967 Abortion Act did not result from a general referendum, much less a medical referendum. If the Corrie Bill is passed and abortions are cut by 2/3 as you suggest, this would, in my view, be a step, not back, but in the right direction.
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