School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Research, Cornwallis East, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NY, England, UK.
Kent Law School, Eliot College, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NS, England, UK.
Soc Sci Med. 2018 Sep;212:26-32. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.07.010. Epub 2018 Jul 7.
The recent 50th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act provides the opportunity to revisit what has been termed the 'remarkable authority' this Act ascribes to doctors. This paper does so using as its starting point a seminal commentary on this question by the renowned medical sociologist Sally Macintyre, published in this journal in 1973 as 'The Medical Profession and the 1967 Abortion Act in Britain'. We revisit themes from that paper through an analysis of the findings of interviews with 14 doctors who, throughout lengthy careers, have provided abortions and led the development of the abortion service in England and Wales. We contrast our findings with Macintyre's, and argue that our interviews highlight the shifting meaning of medical authority and medical professionalism. We show that those doctors most involved in providing abortions place moral value on this work; uphold the authority of women (not doctors) in abortion decision-making; view nurses and midwives as professional collaborators; and consider their professional and clinical judgement impeded by the present law. We conclude that medical sociologists have much to gain by taking abortion provision as a focus for the further exploration of the shifting meaning of medical authority.
最近，1967 年《堕胎法案》迎来了 50 周年，这为重新审视该法案赋予医生的“非凡权力”提供了机会。本文以此为出发点，通过分析对著名医学社会学家萨莉·麦金泰尔（Sally Macintyre）在 1973 年发表于该期刊上的关于这一问题的开创性评论“英国的医学专业与 1967 年《堕胎法案》”，重新探讨了这一问题。我们通过对 14 名医生的访谈结果进行分析，对这些主题进行了回顾，这些医生在整个职业生涯中都提供过堕胎服务，并领导了英格兰和威尔士堕胎服务的发展。我们将研究结果与麦金泰尔的观点进行了对比，并认为我们的访谈突出了医学权威和医学专业主义意义的变化。我们表明，那些最参与堕胎服务的医生赋予这项工作以道德价值；支持妇女（而非医生）在堕胎决策中的权威；将护士和助产士视为专业的合作者；并认为他们的专业和临床判断受到现行法律的阻碍。我们的结论是，医学社会学家可以从以堕胎服务为重点，进一步探讨医学权威意义的变化中获益匪浅。
