Tag Archives: Dignity of the Human Person

Better Off Dead?

Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, , , ,

One of the greatest challenges confronting the Church today is embracing the realization that the majority of people, including most Christians, think with a post-Christian mindset.  The opposition to the Terminally Ill (End of Life) Bill in England comes to mind as the most recent example.  The Catholic Bishops of England vociferously opposed the bill, even though the passage of the bill was fully expected.  Yet their reasoning would really only be convincing to someone deeply rooted in a Christian culture.  That is why they are forced to keep saying “The Catholic Church teaches…”  To use language that speaks of the dignity of the human person, while true, falls rather flat in a culture of death.   In fact, you could argue that it is really at the crux of the issue.  When people no longer practically believe in God, there is little interest in protecting His image in man.  My proposal then is to update our approach by going backwards.

In many ways St. Augustine is a perfect model for our times.  He lived in an era when Christianity was mostly tolerated but the Christian mindset was nowhere to be found.  What he did was to address social evils using the examples and thought patterns of the day.  He would then show how they fit with the understanding of the Church.  In fact he was so good at it, that he wrote a thousand+ page book that has remained intact for nearly 1500 years that uses this technique throughout called The City of God.

Augustine on Suicide

What makes his approach especially relevant is that he tackles the question of suicide in Book I.  The Romans tended to view suicide as something noble.  Augustine examines two famous examples to make his point.  The first was Lucretia who was a Roman noblewoman who had been raped.  After her brother and husband exacted revenge on the offender, she killed herself to avoid the shame.  The second was Marcus Cato who strongly opposed Julius Caesar so that once Caesar came into power, he killed himself rather than submitting.  The Romans looked to both of them as models of nobility.

Rather than leading with the dignity of the human person or the Commandments, Augustine first attacks the value the Romans found in suicide, namely its nobility.  He shows how it is anything but noble.  He calls Lucretia weak and a coward: “it is not even right to call it greatness of soul when someone kills himself because he is not strong enough to endure hardships or other people’s sins.”  Because he is questioning whether or not it is truly noble to run away from hardship, he now has the Romans’ ears.  They value nobility and Augustine has called into question what is truly noble.

Likewise, he calls Cato a coward especially because he and his friends admitted that when his son killed himself it “was an act showing weakness unable to bear adversity rather than honor on guard against disgrace.”  He then goes on to say he prefers a different Marcus, one surnamed Regulus, whom the Romans “offer none better for their outstanding virtue”.  He, rather taking his own life after losing to the Carthaginians, remained patient and bore the shame and bad fortune.  Only then does he offer up the example of Job asking the reader whether he would prefer to be Job or Cato.

Challenging on Their Terms

All of this is pertinent because one of the arguments in favor of assisted suicide is that, just as in the propaganda ad above, there is something noble in taking one’s life.  In order to meet the anti-lifers on their terms we must call it out for what it is; it is most decidedly an act of cowardice on the part of the person and those who surround him.  We all know this, but very few are willing to say it and call it out.  We may think we are being kind by not pointing out the obvious, but it is a false compassion.  There is true nobility in bearing suffering well and facing it head on.  There is true nobility in being Simon of Cyrene and courageously allowing another’s suffering to spill over onto you.  The false compassion that leads to silence is not much better than the false compassion that leads to support of deadly bills like this.

Imagine the difference between offering a person facing suffering and death a pill versus offering them support to lean into it.  When given the choice, wouldn’t any one of us rather be St. Paul than King Saul?  We cannot be afraid to challenge people directly, especially when they have suffering in front of them.  Ask them how they want to be remembered: as someone who went out on their own terms or someone who fought to the very end?  Telling the stories of great saints who endured suffering, especially modern day examples like St. Maximillian Kolbe, St. John Paul II and St. Teresa Benedicta, can be sources of inspiration.  It is a natural transition from them as sources of inspiration to their Source of inspiration. 

Part of the dignity of the human person and a sign of man’s greatness is the fact that he can see suffering coming and can plow right into, and Lord willing, through it.  The reason many will choose to end their lives is because they have not met Christ crucified.  We must not be afraid to preach the truth that because He suffered, suffering now has eternal value.  The Lord suffered so that no suffering is ever meaningless, and the only real “sweet death” is the one that He has set aside for each of us.

Avoiding Therapeutic Tyranny

Bioethics, Conscience, , ,

Because of the atrocities that were carried out under the Third Reich, there was a global awareness of the dignity of the human person especially when it comes to performing medical experiments. Experimentation today is mostly benign because of the fact that the war crime tribunal of Nuremberg articulated 10 standards by which researchers must conform when performing medical experiments on human subjects. These standards have now been adopted throughout the world and form the basis of our clinical trials system.  The first of these standards was that “[T]he voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision.”  The Principle of Free and Informed Consent as it has come to be known has been included in nearly every code of medical ethics throughout the world.  It is meant to protect human beings from a medical totalitarianism by which people are treated as guinea pigs.  Tyrants always try to control the population and, thanks to medical technology, the temptation to chemically control them is greater than it was even 75 years ago. 

The Principle of Free and Informed Consent

Although this principle has been articulated in secular code only recently, the Magisterium of the Church has taught this principle throughout the history of the Church.  Her teaching has been summarized succinctly in the Charter for Health Care Workers that was promulgated in 1994 by the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers

“To intervene medically, the health care worker should have the express or tacit consent of the patient.  In fact, he ‘does not have a separate and independent right in relation to the patient. In general, he can act only if the patient explicitly or implicitly authorizes him.’…Besides the medical relationship there is a human one: dialogic, non-objective. The patient …‘should be called upon to share in the improvement of his health and in becoming cured. He should be given the opportunity of personally choosing, and not be made to submit to the decisions and choices of others.’  So that the choice may be made with full awareness and freedom, the patient should be given a precise idea of his illness and the therapeutic possibilities, with the risks, the problems and the consequences that they entail.  This means that the patient should be asked for an informed consent.”

Charter for Health Care Workers, 72

While the principle of free and informed consent is fairly straightforward, in practice it can be difficult to secure fully informed consent.  The response to a given medical treatment varies greatly from individual to individual.  This means that it is often impossible to explain to someone all of the possible complications involved in a given treatment modality.  Some complications may be extremely remote and a listing of all possible complications may only serve to frighten them away from participation.  At other times, not all of the related hazards are known. 

Free consent is somewhat easier to achieve in practice because it is essentially consists in a negative.  Any sort of coercion ought to be completely rejected.  Because the goal of the research study is therapeutic in nature, this therapeutic benefit should be sufficient “payment” for their participation.  They must remain free to determine whether the personal benefits outweigh the burdens.  Likewise, there must be no “outside” coercion from either public or private institutions that threaten the person in some way.

For this reason, the principle of free and informed consent should really be interpreted as requiring “reasonably” free and “adequately” informed consent as governed by the a “Medical Golden Rule.” The US Bishops in their Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services stated the principle in this way: “Free and informed consent requires that the person or the person’s surrogate receive all reasonable information about the essential nature of the proposed treatment and its benefits; its risks, side-effects, consequences and cost; and any reasonable and morally legitimate alternatives, including no treatment at all” (27).

Why the Principle Matters Today

What makes this principle particularly important is that we are in the midst of the largest medical experiment in human history.  No matter where you stand on the Covid vaccine—its safety or its effectiveness—you should be appalled at the gross violation of this principle. 

First of all, the vaccines are advertised as “safe and effective”.  They may yet prove to be so, but at this point to make such a claim is really unsubstantiated.  Before such a claim can be made, there must be thorough risk-benefit analysis done.  Other than the J&J vaccine, this has not occurred.  They also have not been forthcoming with the data.  Why, for example, when we are concerned about getting people vaccinated, would the CDC not report hospitalization and death data comparing the vaccinated and unvaccinated? It gives the appearance of hiding something.  In fact, even if they aren’t hiding anything, it does gives credence to those who are concerned about a conspiracy. 

What about the rates of adverse events?  To say they are rare lacks a precision that they can readily quantify.  This is vitally important when different subpopulations have greatly different risks from Covid.  When, for example a 20-year-old already has a rare chance of suffering death or long term effects from the virus itself, why should they take a vaccine that also has rare side effects?  How can someone compare them without anything more than the vague designation of rare?  To appeal to public health is a two-edged sword as there is also a drain on public health should the person suffer one of said rare side effects.  Public health is far more than just the elimination of communicable diseases and people are far more than incubators. 

The point is that all of this and more makes it practically impossible to give informed consent.  But more disconcerting is the growing attacks on free consent.  The amount of coercion has reached a fever pitch.  Federal agencies, universities both private and public and private companies have all instituted mandatory vaccination.  Public officials have offered to pay people to be vaccinated and even have offered a lottery system that rewards one lucky winner a million dollars.  All of these forms are coercion are morally reprehensible and should be of grave concern to us all.  Mandatory vaccines today, mandatory sterilizations for the “public good” tomorrow.  Once the principle of free and informed consent is no longer recognized, there is nothing to keep it from becoming a therapeutic tyranny. 

The Covid vaccine might prove to be a good thing (that is why we are performing an experiment), but public health is not an element of the common good.  It is essentially a private good because not everyone shares in it equally.  Elements of the common good, as the name suggests, are shared equally among all the members of society.  Freedom of conscience (properly understood). on the other hand, is part of the common good.  To coerce vaccination, whether it is “safe and effective” or not is ultimately harmful to the common good and therefore must be opposed by even those who are personally in favor of vaccination.