VERSE
Scheele, Roy
doctors. 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,...
...Hypothetically, abortion raises questions which should allow a student to show his ability to interpret and analyze ethical problems...
...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...
...His articles have appeared in America, The National Review and the New York Times...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...I September 1978:552...
...and that members of an admission committee are no more immune from bias or prejudice than other mortals...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...Diamond, after analyzing the results of his survey...
...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...
...Realistically, many students fear discussion of this issue, and they develop a pat evasion--the first step toward compromising moral principle and character...
...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...
...When the breeze moves across them, they totter...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...schools must discriminate, though not on racial, religious, or sexual grounds...
...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...
...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...
...that abortion is a loaded question, on which the medical profession itself is sharply, even bitterly, divided...
...000000000000000000 POPPIES ROY SCHEELE The light in them stands as clear as water drawn from a well...
...Rather, the anxiety stems from a clear recognition that admission to medical school is intensely competitive...
...Both strategies have served politicians well, and politics, as George Orwell remarked, is the defense of the indefensible...
...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...
...You half expect them to spill...
...A larger question is raised by this issue, and that is whether doctors should be granted a proprietary interestin medical ethics...
Vol. 105 • September 1978 • No. 17
