Death With Dignity?

Citizens of Massachusetts will go to the election booths this Tuesday November 6th to vote on the Massachusetts "Death with Dignity" Initiative, appearing as Question 2 on Massachusetts general election ballots.

According to the text of the initiative, the proposed law would allow for medical professionals to prescribe death-inducing drugs to terminally ill patients, ending their lives. Under the initiative, the definition of a terminally ill patient is one who has been granted six of fewer months left to live. In order to be given the lethal drugs, a patient would have to be mentally able to make their own medical decisions and would have to consciously give verbal and written consent. Patients would be required to submit their request orally twice and witnessed in writing, with the initial verbal request being made fifteen days prior to the written request and the second oral request.

The initiative would also allow for blood relatives to assist their loved ones in making these requests.

Supporters of the initiative believe that it would give terminally ill patients dignity and control over their deaths, and would alleviate their suffering.

Opponents of the initiative believe that it is morally wrong, and that beneficiaries of terminally ill patients could abuse the provisions presented by the proposal.

The Catholic Church believes that some cases of in-active euthanasia are morally acceptable, i.e. the removal of a tube or respirator. To understand this, one needs to understand the distinction that the Church makes between ordinary (or proportionate) care and extraordinary (or disproportionate) care. For the Church, ordinary/proportionate care is care and aid that is considered morally obligatory and must be administered under all circumstances. Examples of such care include the administration of food and water by normal means. Extraordinary/disproportionate care is care and aid that is considered to be above and beyond all that is morally obligatory and is optional due to burden, futility, and expenses.  Examples of such care include the administration of oxygen and artificial nutrition by nasal-gastro (NG) or percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tubes.

For example, the Church believes that it is morally acceptable to remove artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH) if 1) death is imminent or soon, 2) if it is futile or if the person is not benefiting from it or assimilating to it, or 3) if it is painful or harmful to the patient.

However, the Church never condones active euthanasia, in which the injection or overdose of a lethal cocktail is administered with the intent of killing.

This goes against the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' foundational mandate, saying the life should be protected from conception to natural death, such as the natural death which would ensue after the removal of an artificial tube. The administration of such legal drugs does not cause a natural death and thus violates the mandate.

While giving the patient autonomy, the administration of such lethal drugs is playing God by trying to control life, something which only God can do.

Additionally it goes against the fifth commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and is a participation in evil and violates the medical principle of integrity and totality.

To find out more about Question 2 and the Massachusetts "Death with Dignity" Initiative, you can visit here: Suicide Is Always A Tragedy

The Catastrophe of Cryopreservation

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) is a process in which an egg is fertilized by a sperm outside of the body, or "in Vitro". In Latin, the term is literally translated as "in glass" and this is because the fertilization is often done within a glass petri-dish or a test tube. The process is usually used to help treat couple infertility when other methods of ART (artificial or assisted reproductive technologies) have failed. The usual method involves gamete collection by ovarian stimulation and masturbation, the combination of the two in a petri dish or test tube to cause fertilization, and then the transfer of the fertilized embryos back to the uterus. However, most IVF clinics harvest multiple embryos to ensure the success of fertilization and since only one fertilized embryo will be able to be transferred back into the uterus, the other embryos that managed to be fertilized will often be preserved in a process known a cryopreservation. Cryopreservation is a process in which cells, whole tissues, or in this case whole embryos, are preserved by cooling to sub-zero temperatures in liquid nitrogen.

The Catholic Church views cryopreservation of embryos as incompatible with the respect owed to human embryos, for they are put in serious risk of death, for many do not survive the freezing process. Additionally, these embryos are temporally deprived of maternal reception and gestation.

Then, if cryopreservation of embryos is incompatible with Catholic doctrine, what is the Church's response concerning what to do with the frozen embryos that are already in existence?

• It has been proposed to use these frozen embryos for research. The Catholic church has responded that this proposal is unacceptable because it treats these embryos as simply "biological material" that will be destructed. 
• It has been proposed to harvest stem cells from these frozen embryos to treat diseases. The Catholic church has responded that this proposal is unacceptable for the same reasons as above.
• It has been proposed to use the frozen embryos to treat further infertility. The Catholic church has responded that this proposal is unacceptable for the same reasons that IVF is unacceptable, because it separates the procreative and unitive functions of sexual intercourse.
• It has been proposed that the frozen embryos be offered up for prenatal adoption. The Catholic church has responded that while praiseworthy in its attempt to respect and defend human lives, this proposal still raises many problems  for the same reasons above.

Thus, the final ultimatum of Pope John Paul II and the Catholic church was that there is no licit or ethical response to this catastrophe that has been created. The Church concludes that "all things considered, it needs to be recognized that the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice  that can not be resolved". This being the case, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have made pleas to the scientific community that the production of human embryos be halted, taking into account that there seems to be no licit solution regarding the human dignity and destiny of thousands upon thousands of frozen embryos.

Fighting Bioterrorism

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, bioterrorism is the intentional dissemination of biological agents, such as bacteria, viruses, and toxins, used to cause illness or death to humans, animals, or plants. While many of the agents used in bioterrorism are naturally occurring, many can be altered to increase their abilities to cause disease, make them resistant to current medicines, and to increase their ability to spread through the environment. Typical modes of dissemination in bioterrorism are through the air, through water, or through food. Biological agents are appealing to terrorists because they can be extremely difficult to detect, while still spreading wide-spread hysteria, because many do not cause illness for several hours to several days. Some bioterrorist agents, such as smallpox, are contagious and can be spread from person to person, whereas others, such as anthrax, cannot.     

                                                                                                                 

Some examples of bioterrorism are in World War I, where anthrax and and a biological agent known as glanders were used to infect enemy livestock.

Under the guidance of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the United States started to develop biological weapons in 1942. These programs continued up to 1969, when President Richard Nixon issued an executive order to shut down all programs related to American offensive use of biological weapons.

In 1984, radical followers of the Bagwan Shree Rajneesh attempted to control an election in Oregon by incapacitating voters by infecting food and public domains with the bacteria Salmonella typhimurium. Many citizens were plagued with severe food poisoning, but no fatalities occurred.

Major bioterrorism attacks have occurred most recently in the United States in 2001. Known as Amerithrax by its FBI investigation case name, an anthrax attack occurred in the United States in September of 2001, just a week after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and the U.S. Congress, infecting many and killing five.

To help prevent bioterrorism, please visit CDC Bioterrorism Preparation

Violating Religious Freedom

In January, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a mandate under the Affordable Care Act (also known as "Obamacare") that requires all employer health plans to provide free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortificients, regardless of any moral or religious objections. The mandate does allow for limited exceptions for religious organizations, but ministries of institutions like Catholic schools, hospitals and charities—educating the young, caring for the sick, feeding the hungry—are not considered sufficiently religious to qualify for the Mandate’s narrow “religious exemption.” Thus under the HHS Mandate, such religious institutions will be forced to provide services that directly contradict the teachings of their faith, but—more alarmingly—the federal government is claiming the right to decide for religious institutions what constitutes their ministry.

Many people argue that the HHS mandate is chiefly concerned with providing free access to contraception. But this is simply not the case. Contraception is already widely available and "access" to something does not mean having it paid for by someone else - especially against there religious beliefs. The HHS mandate does not just concern itself with requiring free contraceptives, but also with requiring free sterilizations and free abortificients. All of this violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting the establishment of any law impeding the free exercise of religion. 

In February, President Obama provided an "accommodation" in which insurance providers, rather than the employers themselves, would pay for the services that religious employers would have to provide - or risk high fines. But this does not solve the problem, because it still forces religious employers to provide services to which they have moral objections. Thus Obamacare and the HHS mandate are posing a threat to religious freedom.

What can you do to stop the HHS mandate and stand up for religious freedom? 

One thing you can do is to print out this sheet provided by the Pro-Life Action League (on which this blog is based on) and to read it, understand it, and share it with friends. Stand Up For Religious Freedom

Defund Planned Parenthood

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), commonly referred to as just Planned Parenthood, is a non-profit organization providing reproductive health and maternal and child health services. Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of contraception and abortions in the United States and has received federal funding since 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed into law the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act. The law provides funding for contraception, family planning information, and abortions. The clinic performs roughly 300,000 abortions a year among 3 million women.  Planned Parenthood opposes the idea that a young women should first gain parental consent before an abortion because they believe that it is a violation of privacy. They also oppose the refusal clause, which allows pharmacists to refuse to dispense drugs and abortificients against their beliefs. They have also opposed suggested waiting periods before abortions and bans against partial-birth abortions, which has been illegal in the U.S. since 2003. For those of you who are not familiar with abortions, there are three types:

1) The first method of abortion is Aspiration.

This method involves the placement of a vacuum instrument into the cervix and applying suction to remove the fetus from the womb. This method of abortion can be performed within the first 3-12 weeks of development.

2) The second method is Dialation and Curettage (D&C)

This method involves the use of both metal instrument and suctional tools to empty the contents of the uterus. This method of abortion can be performed within the first 16-18 weeks of development.

3) Intact Dialation and Extraction (IDX or partial-birth)

This method involves exposing part of the baby from the cervix. The cranium is crashed and the contents of the infant are sucked out. The dead infant is removed and discarded as biological waste. This method can be performed starting at 30 weeks of development up to delivery.

To learn more about Planned Parenthood you can visit this website: exposeplannedparenthood.com

Unborn Victims of Violence

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act, codified in 2004 by President George W. Bush, is a United States Law which recognizes a "child in utero" as a legal victim, if he or she is injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb". This law thus stipulates that if a pregnant woman is attacked, and if the woman survives but the infant in the womb dies, then the attacker is guilty with murder just as if the mother had been killed.  Although this is Federal criminal law, due to principles of Federalism present in the United States of America Constitution, Federal criminal law cannot apply to crimes prosecuted by the individual states. However, 36 states also recognize the fetus or "unborn child" as a crime victim, at least for purposes of homicide or feticide. Thus the infant, commonly referred to as a "fetus" would now seem to have gained "personhood". However, the law makes explicit exceptions for abortions, stating that the law would not  "be construed to permit the prosecution" "of any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf", "of any person for any medical treatment of the pregnant woman or her unborn child" or "of any woman with respect to her unborn child."   This seems to be contradiction if the law explicitly states that the fetus is a member of the species Homo sapiens and is thus a human, which would grant it "personhood". Some people stipulate that this legal language might trigger the "collapse" clause of Roe v. Wade, which established abortions to be legal in the United States.

Here is a link to the actual text of the law: UVV Act Text

Also, here is an instructional dialogue on the law by Father Stan Fortuna OFM Cap., a Catholic priest and rapper!: Stan Fortuna (to listen to audio files on this blog you will need to download Spotify, a useful and awesome program!)

Welcome

Welcome to my blog! The main goal of this site is to raise awareness of bioethical issues present in our society today and to provide a place of discussion for individuals who have an interest in the field. For those of you who are new to the field, here is an overview:

What is Bioethics?

Bioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine.

What are bioethicists concerned with?

Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, religion, and philosophy.

What are some of the main issues within the bioethical field?

Bioethics addresses a wide range of medical and scientific issues, some of the most prominent being the boundaries of life (abortion, euthanasia), surrogacy, the allocation of scarce health care resources (organ donation, health care rationing), and the right to refuse medical care for cultural and religious reasons. 

How much does religion influence bioethics?

While there is no doubt that religion plays a key role in shaping different views on the various bioethical issues (e.g. I will be focusing mainly on the Catholic viewpoint), there are some basic principles that all bioethicists agree on regardless of religion. 

What are the basic bioethical values/principles?

The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research identifies in its Belmont Report (1979) the basic ethical principles that should underlie the conduct of all biomedical and behavioral research involving human beings, including autonomy, beneficence and justice. Additional principles have been added to the list, such as non-maleficence, human dignity, and the sanctity of life.

Why should I care about bioethics?

Today biomedical and biotechnological advances are being made faster than ever before, with the goal of the betterment of society in mind. There is so much more that can be done nowadays thanks to biology. However, just because a biological practice can be done does not mean that it is the ethical or right thing to do. Without studying the ethics behind different biological practices and without establishing a ethical code for biological procedure, it will become increasingly difficult to practice biology ethically in the future. This is an issue that touches us all, whether we are doctors, surgeons, nurse practitioners, fathers, mothers, or students and is thus of prime importance. 

I hope now that you see what a wide scope of study bioethics covers and why it is of such interest. I hope that you will join the blog, keep up to date with the posts, and will participate in the discussion. Please sign up to receive updates, newsletters, media, and alerts. 

Again welcome!

Matthew Laird