Last year, the Journal of Medical Ethics published an article entitled “After-Birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live?” Central to the paper’s thesis is the position that “the moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus, that is, neither can be considered a ‘person’ in a morally relevant sense.” The paper further poses the preposterous […]
I came across a headline that posed a bold idea: Killing MS Patients VIA Assisted Suicide to Harvest their Organs? As a theoretical question for provocative bioethicists to ponder or advocate, it may be interesting, but I live in the real world far from academia. The real world is being asked to answer that very […]
As I write this in mid-March I look forward to soon being with two special families, who because of the depth of their love for a family member, found themselves in the midst of an international spotlight they did not seek, and a fierce conflict they did not shirk. They are the families of Terri […]
My husband and I had hit rock bottom. Our marriage was strained to the breaking point. We were expecting our seventh child, conceived unexpectedly while I was working to finish my bachelor’s degree after a fourteen-year hiatus from college. We had been too busy, we thought, to work through difficult communication problems. For several years […]
Dr. Vincent Fortanasce knows the field of medicine as well as anyone. He has studied psychiatry at Yale, neurology at the University of Southern California and orthopedic rehabilitation at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital, one of the top rehab centers in the country. He has spent decades treating thousands of patients, including world-class athletes and celebrities. Many […]
In another example of Obamacare overreach, the current administration is planning to pry into your private health care records. The proposed new regulation, issued by Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), demands that insurance companies submit detailed health care information about the patients they insure.* What this means, in […]
The Problem “Quality of life” and “death with dignity” have more than a few folks erroneously asserting that the range of legally-acceptable end-of-life options should include “voluntary euthanasia,” and/or “physician-assisted suicide” also known as “physician aid in dying.” [1] In a recent commentary entitled Human Dignity and the End of Life, Cardinal Rigali and Bishop […]
How are Catholic health care professional to act, morally and professionally, in a culture where legislative mandates diminish the exercise of the moral conscience of the clinician and threaten human dignity and freedom? The following principles are offered to guide moral action of health care professionals when confronted with a decision to disregard mandated unethical […]
When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n.1777). We live in a culture where health services are driven by moral relativism, commodification of the human person, the technological imperative, profitability in health services, the creep of utilitarian and impersonal ethical paradigms, escalating […]
Many people today are very busy, sometimes wondering “who’s got time to read?” And yet, given the rapid and varied scientific breakthroughs which render contemporary research and healthcare contexts evermore complex and morally confusing, relevant reading is arguably imperative given our responsibility to the common good as voters, donors to charities, and investors in corporations […]
