Madam, - I am very concerned about the contents of the Medical Practitioners Bill being debated in the Dáil. The powers which will be vested in the Minister for Health, if this Bill is passed as drafted at present, are frightening.
The Medical Council is set up to protect patients. Under the new Bill the council would lose its independence as the Minister for Health would have extensive operational influence over it. The Minister would have power to issue policy directives and enforce policy directions, as well as to appoint or remove council members or to dismiss the council.
Such complete power is very dangerous to invest in one individual. The Medical Council has to date upheld the time-honoured ethical standard, (based on the Hippocratic oath), which is that abortion is professional misconduct. However, if this Bill is passed by the Dáil, will this not mean that a Minister for Health with an ideological commitment to legalising abortion in Ireland may at some time in the future use a policy directive to force a change in these ethical standards, and be the instrument for bringing abortion into Irish hospitals, as well as embryo research into the educational and pharmaceutical laboratories in this country?
The same result could be achieved indirectly by such a Minister by filling the medical council with lay appointees of his or her ideological view. Such loopholes leave unprotected the right to life of the unborn. The Medical Practitioner's Bill in its current form should be rejected by the Dáil. - Yours, etc,
Dr MARY O'CARROLL, Woodlands, Letterkenny, Co Donegal.