I found your June 17 editorial, ”When government plays doctor,”
interesting but contradictory.
You object to the ruling that bars doctors from discussing abortion:
”(C)ongress . . . needs to allow doctors to provide the counseling that they deem proper and complete.” Yet you advocate: ”Then, let the physicians` code of ethics and their own consciences be their guides.”
From ancient times until very recent years, the premier ethics code doctors have subscribed to has been spelled out in the Hippocratic Oath, which deems life sacred: ”I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel. . . . Furthermore, I will not give to a woman an instrument to produce abortion. . . .”
Doctors considering abortion resort to barbarism when they ignore this safeguard for unborn babies. Their code of ethics indeed!
