Catholic Physicians\u27 Guild

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 34 | Number 4 Article 10November 1967Letter to the Editor...Catholic Physicians' GuildFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationCatholic Physicians' Guild (1967) "Letter to the Editor...," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 34 : No. 4 , Article 10.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol34/iss4/10Letter To The Editor ... Brief communications are welcome and will be printed as space subject to the usual editing. rmits, TO THE EDITOR: Your August issue had excellent articles on abortion. Dr. Zimmer-mann's reflection on the Hippocratic O ath was timely. I am sending you a copy of my letter to the San Diego County Medical Society. I feel that physicians should ACT~ not just TALK against abortion. George W. Merkle, M.D . Carlsbad, Calif. Editor's riote: Dr. Markle's letter addressed to the Council of the San Diego County Medical Society, with copies to Governor Ronald Reagan, Senator Jack Schrade and Assemblymen John Stull and Richard E. Barnes: Dear Doctors: The recent action of the California Medical Association in requesting the Cali-fornia State Legislature to relax our state laws on abortion has made a mockery of the Hippocratic Oath. It is cer~ainly para-doxical that physicians of this state are in a real sense coerced psychologically into joining our medical societies because of a fear of being considered by their colleagues in some way "unethical" if they don't belong - and yet here we have the state organization adopting a patently unethi-cal and immoral and even medically un-sound resolution and then presenting it 350 shamelessly to our state legislat ' . I do not know what course you men 1 take, but I can say for myself that · ' TI not going to stand idly by while m leaders in the CMA lead us like Judas g :s over the precipice. Nothing but evil c accrue to us physicians by the action >f this body. We will all suffer beforf' 1e bar of public opinion for revolting m the proud principles of our medical t. The contempt that will logically fc w for human life and the obvious athe: -: prin-ciples upon which this resolution . based will only cause our patients to h us in disrepute. The recent attitude of 1is or-ganization (CMA) in regard t( federal · and state programs of medical car social-ized medicine) has been one of 1opera-tion and servile acceptance of do' tgraded medical care and I believe that tis is a sign of a definite decadence in our p fession. Robert Louis Stevenson once ~ d that of all cases of men, physicians )t least involved in the errors of their a. . If he were alive today, one wonders if ' " stand would be the same. I think it v · ld be. Most of our physicians do not b !ieve in some of the bizarre actions of O' • present medical leaders. It seems that t} wrong men have attained high office in ur pro-fession in California- just as ( ne bad men have attained high political ,ffice in our state governments. I, for one. do not feel obliged to follow them. My conscience, therefore, dictate.<; that I resign immediately from the C !l ifornia Medical Association in protest to its stand on abortion. My resignation is -hased on moral, religious, medical and professional grounds. LINACRE Q uARTE RLY 

Letter to the Editor...

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Letter to the Editor...

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