Doctors Concerned About Pill Issues

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31771, 30 August 1968, Page 12

Doctors Concerned About Pill Issues

Concern about the implications of Pope Paul’s encyclical on birth control has been expressed by a group of Roman Catholic doctors in Christchurch.

A spokesman for the group, Dr M. F. Fahey, said a telegram saying that they were disturbed at the encyclical’s implications, and that they were united in their decision to prescribe the pill when indicated for any patient was sent to a recent conference at Wairakei of clergy, bishops, and Roman Catholic medical men, according to the Catholic weekly, the “Tablet.” No acknowledgement of the telegram had been received from the conference and it had apparently not been read, Dr Fahey said. “My feeling is that most Catholic doctors will go on prescribing the pill as a result of private discussion with their patients,” he said. “The Pope’s is a tragic decision,” Dr Fahey is reported as saying. “We know the findings of the majority of members of the commission which advised the Pope to give approval to some artificial methods of birth control, and we felt that the Catholic Church was at last taking a more realistic attitude. “But suddenly all the combined endeavour aimed at understanding and meeting the needs of human beings has been dropped.” Dr Fahey said the majority of Catholic women of child-bearing age were taking the pill, or some other means of artificial birth control. “A lot of patients are now very upset, not knowing where to turn for help,” he said. “Previously they felt

their conscience was clear: now they are not so sure, and are asking for the pill together with a tranquilliser. “But I feel that very few Catholic couples will no longer use the pill because of the encyclical. The only result it will have will be to aggravate any guilt complex they may have had,” he said. Dr Fahey said there should be an urgent meeting of all Catholic doctors in New Zealand to discuss the question to let the clergy know the facts and to meet them in an effort to seek some uniformity of interpretation. The master of the Catholic doctors’ organisation in Christchurch, the St Luke’s Guild (Dr K. Wilson) who was at the Wairakei conference, said the feelings of the Christchurch doctors were made known at the conference to Christchurch members of the guild who were there, to the chaplain, the Rev. G. Creagh, and the Bishop of Christchurch (the Most Rev. B. P. Ashby). A series of discussions to study the encyclical will be held in the next few months by Catholic doctors in Christchurch.