Heilbrigðisskýrslur - 01.12.1938, Side 182

178
done in hospitals authorised for that purpose, etc.); the foeticides
have to be justified by certain medical indications, and on weighing
these regard may be had to the social condition of the woman in ques-
tion. ín other words: Medical indications which would alone be consid-
ered insufficient can however justify the operation if social indications
recommend it. Before this Act caine into force there was a certain
amount of confusion here as in many other countries both as re-
garded the attitude of the general public and that of the medical pro-
fession to foeticides, the latter either not being able to or not caring
to draw clearly the lines between the permissible in this respect
and the not permissible. It was an open secret that although foet-
icides were unconditionally forbidden by the law they were, how-
ever, carried out by some doctors as often as not irrespective of
medical and social indications, and this practice was rapidly in-
creasing. The Act has already brought about a great improvement in
this respect. The lines have become clearer to the general public and
the doctors have no Ionger the excuse that they do not know their
duty in these matters. The result of the law may, indeed, be said to
be paradoxical; under the Act foeticides are for the first time directly
legalised, but the result is that the number of such operations is con-
siderably decreasing in the country. An annual average of about 30
foeticides have heen carried out according to the law.
So far the provisions of the Sterilisation Act can hardly be said to
have been put into practice. Under this Act the Director of Public
Health and a board consisting of three members, of whom one must
be a doctor (preferably an alienist) and another a lawyer (prefer-
ably a judge) may authorise operations of this kind. Castration may
only he permitted at the request of tlie person concerned himself
or of a judge, after a judiciary decision has been made to this ef-
fect, and only when it is considered that unnatural sexual impulses in
the jierson concerned may lead to dangerous crimes (sex-criines,
pyromania) and no other solution can be found. Sterilisation may
only be permitted if it is considered that the person concerned carries
some hereditary trait that may be inherited by the offspring, sucli
as grave deformity, lunacy, mental deficiency or criminal disposition,
or if the person concerned is mentally deficient or a permanent lunatic,
or if he suffers from a grave, protracted disease and there is reason
to supjiose that he cannot support himself or his offspring. Foeticides
may be permitted under this Act if there is reason to believe that the
abovementioned hereditary defects will be reproduced in the child
and also if the foetus is conceived through a rape; in that case the
woman must have reported it immediately and the case have been
jiroved before a judge.
Other Legislation concerning Prevention of Accidents and Health
Protection.
In this connection we may first mention the Act concerning Public
Health Boards and Public Health Regulations which was passed in
l‘J05 and amended and extended in scope in 1940. This Act regulates