Monday 17 March 2008

Hippocratic Oath posters and leaflets for pro-life doctors

Reading The Times this morning “Go public if you have any ethical qualms, doctors ordered by GMC” prompts the following observation: A peaceful resistance movement against abortion, euthanasia by neglect, in vitro fertilisation and embryo experimentation is an appropriate way forward for those who respect the inviolable right to life of the human person from conception till natural death in Britain’s increasingly anti-life culture.

The Times reports tells us: “Doctors must display posters or give out information leaflets detailing any ethical objections they hold on abortion or other contentious medical issues under new guidelines published today by the medical regulator… They must also set aside their own beliefs where a patient wishes it, or directly refer the patient to another doctor who does not hold the same objections.”

This is what the great pro-life leader, respected by people of all faiths and none, Pope John Paul II, said on the subject: “Abortion and euthanasia are thus crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize. There is no obligation in conscience to obey such laws: instead there is a grave and clear obligation to oppose them by conscientious objection” (Evangelium Vitae, 73, emphasis as in the original).

SPUC is offering doctors posters and leaflets promoting awareness of the Hippocratic Oath which states: “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy.”