ABORTIONS AND ADMISSIONS
Connolly, Paul H.
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 WHATARETHE MEDICALSCHOOLS UPTO? HB OR TIONS HND HDIIISSIONX On February 24, 1977, Senator Richard Sehweiker (R-Pa.) introduced into the United States...
...Given the fact that many doctors "hold and profess deep and emotionally charged feelings on these hotly debated topics," the discussion of such topics in pre-admission interviews represents,argued Diamond, "a potential jeopardy to an otherwise highly qualified candidate in an exquisitely competitive situation...
...The HEW study, originally due March 1, 1978, has suffered bureaucratic delay which still continues...
...Diamond, after analyzing the results of his survey...
...That last phrase does not sound particularly ominous, if you presume that some inconvenience is a small price to pay for religious freedom...
...A larger question is raised by this issue, and that is whether doctors should be granted a proprietary interestin medical ethics...
...His articles have appeared in America, The National Review and the New York Times...
...Eugene Diamond, a Chicago physician who ultimately surveyed American medical schools on this question, admits that at first complaints of discrimination were met with "skepticism...
...HB OR TIONS HND HDIIISSIONX On February 24, 1977, Senator Richard Sehweiker (R-Pa...
...The problem is that one: the answer to an ethical question passes beyond analytic interpretation into value judgment--as it must if action is to result from discussion--the issue becomes: whose criteria are correct...
...It was but a short while later when Senator Schweiker urged those concerned about discrimination to make their views or experiences known to Secretary Ca~ifano and himself...
...On November 4 of last year, therefore, the Senate approved the substance of Schweiker's bill as an amendment to another bill (S.2159...
...A questionnaire was prepared to survey the admission practices of all medical schools, and it was .the resutts of that survey, published by Dr...
...Of the 60 respondents, two surprised the investigators by admitting frankly: Yes, "a stated refusal to participate in abortion and/or sterilization procedures [would] be considered a negative factor in an applicant...
...introduced into the United States Senate a bill (S.784)"To provide for unbiased consideration of applicants to medical schools...
...When the breeze moves across them, they totter...
...Without case histories like those I've seen in the past year, HEW could cover up the whole problem...
...Weeding out zealots is usually a thin euphemism for silencing those .who disagree with you, and as the determination to keep church and state separate in this country threatens to become a crusade to prohibit moral principle from serving as the legitimate basis for any law, the zeal of the secularists grows loud...
...pro-life groups across the country would be contacted...
...Given a plethora of qualified candidates, medical schools are no more likely to voluntarily welcome "administrative problems...
...Doctors are human, at bestnand at worst--and if a society allows its conscience to be put under ether, it's going .to find that some of its parts are missing in the morning...
...a notice would be included in the Federal Register, explaining how complaints might be filed...
...Such open discrimination was unexpected...
...Also dis-turbing, though less surprising, was the indication by two-thirds of the medical schools that applicants were likely to be questioned as to their position on abortion, and the frank acknowledgment by one-quarter of the schools that a student's refusal to participate in abortion procedures would "create administrative problems...
...But one month later House conferees rejected Schweiker's amendment and, by way of compromise, ordered Secretary Joseph Califano and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to study the extent and incidence of discrimination in order to determine the need for legislation...
...The same conclusion was reached by Dr...
...Indicative of this zeal is the fact that whenever the issue of abortion arises these days some latter-day Titus Oates 'is quick to detect another Popish Plot...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 WHATARETHE MEDICALSCHOOLS UPTO...
...Certainly, we need righteous doctors, and schools shottld cons!der ,,tot only grade point averages and standardized test scores but also an individual's apparent sense of justice, integrity and compassion...
...Specifically, the bill stipulated that henceforth federally supported medical schools would be prohibited from questioning, verbally or in writing, "any individual who is applying for admission . . . about such individual's views regarding abortion or sterilization...
...Realistically, many students fear discussion of this issue, and they develop a pat evasion--the first step toward compromising moral principle and character...
...A surgical scalpel can deftly excise an appendix, but no diploma prepares a doctor to employ Occain's razor on anyone's ethics, removing whatever the doctor finds inconsistent with a healthy life...
...Even the Supreme Court has learned, however, that it cannot silence lawful dissent by closing legal debate...
...The candor of that response, surmised Dr...
...Why are students inhibited by the abortion question but not by such other controversial topics as euthanasia, fetal experimentation,orgenetic engineering?The answer is not that bright students are incapable of reciting the law or summarizing opposing viewpoints...
...As reports of bias persisted, however, the National Federation of Catholic Physicians' Guilds decided that the allegations deserved investigation...
...They may, for example, review the arguments but avoid taking a position, or they may state their personal views while insisting they would never impose them on others...
...Admission to medical school is intensely competitive, and the question arose: "Were the complaints . . . merely attempts to rationalize failure in a bitterly disappointed, highly achieving student...
...and that members of an admission committee are no more immune from bias or prejudice than other mortals...
...The process could hang fire indefinitely...
...But orthodox Jews and other Saturday sabbath observers know that few employers willingly inconvenience themselves in any way...
...For the present, the House of Representatives hesitates whi'le HEW investigates, and no end to the question is in sight.PAUL H. CONNOLLY (Paul H. Connolly is an associate professor o] English and Director of Academic Guidance at Yeshiva University in Washington Heights, New York...
...One undergraduate, admitted to one of the nation's best medical schools, was recently asked why he thought schools interviewed applicants on the abortion issue, and he casually remarked that he thought they might be trying "to weed out zealots...
...Almost all medical schools report that they t~ to elicit ethical opinions during interviews, and their justification for this is the need to determine the ethical sensitivity and moral character of bature Commonweal: 551 doctors...
...Moreover, the bill added, medical schools may not "deny admission or otherwise discriminate against any applicant for study because of the candidate's refusal to . . . in any way participate in the performance of abortion or other medical services contrary to his religious beliefs or moral convictions...
...Diamond in the February 1976 issue of Linacre Quarterly, which provoked Senator Schweiker's concern and the resultant bill...
...Senator Schweiker, though neither Catholic nor conservative, insists that the identification of the anti-abortion movement as exclusively right-wing and Catholic is "a gross distortion of the political realities," and in introducing his bill to prevent medical school discrimination, he era- - phasized that "there are many people of all faiths on each side of the question....This is not a question of pro-life or pro-choice...
...schools must discriminate, though not on racial, religious, or sexual grounds...
...Senator Sehweiker's conclusion, therefore, is that "It is not enough to ask these s.=hools not to discriminate, , because with one hundred applicants for every medical school opening, a reason can always be found to reject any application...
...Meanwhile, pre-medical students can anticipate that questions regarding abortion will continue to be a routine part of the interviewing process and that some doctors will continue to regard pro-life attitudes as "unprofessional...
...and there would be a follow-up at the medical schools regarding students' complaints...
...Diamond, "reflects a viewpoint within some segments of the medical profession that this issue has been finally settled by the Supreme Court decision and that continuing debate is largely irrelevant...
...Both strategies have served politicians well, and politics, as George Orwell remarked, is the defense of the indefensible...
...What prompted Senator Schweiker to introduce this measure...
...000000000000000000 POPPIES ROY SCHEELE The light in them stands as clear as water drawn from a well...
...As of mid-March, the Health Resources Administration of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare had only presented Congress with an outline of its proposed study of medical school discrimination: a letter would be sent to all the medical schools in the United States...
...the part of some interviewers, to any expression of anti-abortion opinions...
...Many individuals would confidently entrust their lives into a doctor's hands but see no reason why he should be allowed to operate on their consciences...
...According to Dr...
...Rather, the anxiety stems from a clear recognition that admission to medical school is intensely competitive...
...Following the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision of January 22, 1973, there were a growing number of anecdotal and hearsay reports of admission interviews at which applicants felt there was an obvious and prejudicial antipathy, on...
...You half expect them to spill...
...Diamond, questionnaires were sent to 108 medical schools...
...It is a question of freedom of conscience, of whether we will allow some occupations to be closed to people~ because of their sincerely held moral beliefs...
...I September 1978:552...
...It sounds reasonable enough, until one realizes that one man's faith is another man's fantasy, and what seems righteously zealous to one person is hysterically fanatical to another...
...that abortion is a loaded question, on which the medical profession itself is sharply, even bitterly, divided...
...I fear the kind of report which might be written," he stated, "if those affected don't come forward...
...Hypothetically, abortion raises questions which should allow a student to show his ability to interpret and analyze ethical problems...
Vol. 105 • September 1978 • No. 17
