Canadian doctors: victims of the abortion laws.
Present Canadian abortion laws are victimizing the medical profession by insisting that doctors make moral decisions while society and the legislators opt out of their responsibility in this regard.The laws are so vague as to be uninterpretable, dealing with undefined concepts such as "endanger" and "health". The doctor-patient relationship is utterly devastated in a completely unprecedented manner by the setting up of "boards" to make decisions about patients they do not know. The whole procedure specified by law is extremely wasteful, chance-ridden and productive only of personal moral opinions translated into haphazard decisions.The conclusion is drawn that, no matter what personal views be held on the subject of abortion, the entire medical profession must protest vigorously to have the present legislation abolished and to have abortion removed from the criminal code. It is suggested that hospital therapeutic abortion boards should approve automatically the opinion of the patient's own doctor to give recognition to the fact that it is not possible for the present law to be interpreted on a logical basis, case by case. This will force society to face its responsibilities and the government to come into the open with its own position on abortion.
Smith
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