Laurence Crutchlow here presents the CMF motions submitted for the BMA Medical Students’ 2001 conference on 31 March. Please pray for Laurence as he seeks to uphold Christian principles.
- That this conference affirms that premarital sexual abstinence is the most effective way of lowering this country’s appalling rates of unplanned pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted disease amongst teenagers.
- Given the growing need for doctors to be involved in AIDS care, this conference urges that students must not be discouraged or prevented by medical schools from undertaking medical electives in countries with a high incidence of HIV infection.
- That this conference deplores the recent legalisation allowing the production of and research on cloned human embryos in this country.
- That this conference affirms that, contrary to recent misleading media and government statements, the ‘morning-after pill’ may be seen as a method of abortion rather than contraception because it often acts by preventing implantation.
- That this conference affirms that medical students and doctors have the right to object on grounds of conscience to participating in procedures which are not in accordance with the 1948 Declaration of Geneva in maintaining ‘the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception even against threat’.
- That this conference affirms the conclusion of last year’s (BMA) consensus conference on Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) that there should be no change in law regarding PAS.
- That this conference affirms that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority did not fulfil its obligation to ensure that all alternative pathways had been fully explored through prior research or work with animals before recommending research on cloned human embryos.
- That this conference urges that any medical ethics teaching in British medical schools must include discussion of the different bases for ethical decision-making held by students and doctors from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds.
- That this conference urges that any medical ethics teaching in British medical schools must not solely promote humanistic bases for ethical decision-making such as Beauchamp and Childress’s four principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice.
- That this conference affirms that the use of preimplantation diagnosis (PGD) and embryo disposal even for serious medical disorders of genetic origin violates the 1948 Declaration of Geneva which states that doctors must ‘maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception even against threat’.
