CedarEthics

Are you a health professional (doctor, nurse, pharmacist)? Are you a student preparing for one of these professions? Perhaps you are a pastor, counselor, or church outreach volunteer. Perhaps you are a social worker or hospital chaplain. You may work in pro-life advocacy, or in a women’s center.

If you are involved in any of these career paths, you know of the many new ethical questions that have arisen in modern biotechnology and medicine: What does it mean to be human? Who owns the life that I live? How should we make clinical decisions for our families and loved ones, for our friends, and for our society?

In spite of these complex new ethical questions, few universities provide in-depth training in ethical decision-making.  Until now.

Cedarville University is offering a new, completely online Graduate Certificate in bioethics. Our latest podcast features a radio interview with the program director.

Program Website

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To listen, just click on the player below (click on the Audio MP3 button if the player doesn’t appear).

Training in Bioethics: A New Resource [ 19:12 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Cedarville University is launching a new Graduate Certificate in Bioethics.

The Graduate Certificate is for healthcare professionals (e.g., physicians, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists), who are daily confronted with challenges to ethical and compassionate practice. Pastors, hospital chaplains, and social workers also need such training, as they often serve on the ethics committees of community hospitals, and are frequently approached for advice on medical and bioethical questions. For all of these working professionals, additional training in bioethics will provide the tools for effective ethical reasoning and analysis of real-life problems.

The new program begins in August. It is flexible, application-oriented, and completely online. For more information, go to the Graduate Certificate Website. If you have further questions, you can also contact the program director, Dr. Dennis Sullivan (email: sullivan@cedarville.edu).

Organ transplantation has always been laced with ethical issues. The current demand far exceeds supply, and this leads to issues of justice, and to questions about who should receive available organs. Many potential donors do not have a living will or a signed donor card, leaving the decision of whether their organs should be donated to a surrogate. The issues of cost and medical futility further complicate this already tricky ethical arena.

Since these ethical problems revolve around a shortage of organs, scientists and engineers have been collaborating on a possible solution. What if a person’s own stem cells could be used to generate an organ to replace one that may fail? Such an organ would not require a donor, and because it is generated from the patient’s own cells, the risk of transplant rejection would be very low.

Organs are complex structures, and building new organs from stem cells will not be trivial.  However, some amazing new techniques are already in development. Using stem cells and either artificial “scaffolding” or natural “scaffolding” from cadavers, scientists have created simple organs, including bladders, tracheas, urethras, corneas, skin, and bone. More complex organs, such as the heart or the kidney, will be more difficult to engineer. but these developments give hope that adult stem cells may be part of an ethical solution to a difficult dilemma.

For more information: Growing New Organs

Heather Kuruvilla

From an ethics perspective, 2012 was a difficult year. Our national rhetoric about issues that matter has taken a particularly nasty tone. It seems that on all sides in the culture wars: left, right, and center, people are in the habit of questioning the moral integrity of one another, simply for holding a different opinion than their own. And in spite of our many words, little changes, and we are discouraged. I think we often forget Who ultimately is sovereign over  this fallen world.

But in 2013, I must deal with my own spirit. Recently, an Anglican pastor friend shared this magnificent meditation with me, written by a Roman Catholic priest and martyr. This is my prayer for the New Year:

A Prayer of Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete,
which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders;
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own. Amen.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590) is now a reality. And after the election of Barack Obama to a second term, it is clear that “Obamacare” is going to remain with us.

The national debate over health care reform has been one of the most divisive issues in our modern public discourse. One reason for this is that people often start discussing political solutions without really understanding the issues. The politics are messy, but the ethical issues at stake are critically important. Without rancor or political posturing, we take a look at the ethical problems in our current health care system and see how Obamacare may help.

This podcast is based on a radio interview with talk-show host Bob Burney on Christian Radio WRFD in Columbus.

The Ethics of Obamacare: A Post-election Perspective (27) [ 34:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In America, those who ethically and morally oppose war are not forced to violate their deeply held beliefs. Our nation has a long-standing tradition of respect for the principles of conscientious objectors.¹ In fact, soldiers whose battlefield experiences have led them to oppose war may be honorably discharged from the military or re-classified as a non-combatant.²

If our government is careful not to step on the conscience of those who oppose war, should we not respect the beliefs of those who oppose contraception? Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, private insurance plans must cover the cost of all FDA-approved birth control. This includes contraceptive measures, as well as methods like the IUD, which prevent implantation of the developing embryo.³ Failure to comply with the mandate will result in significant fines. ⁴

So what happens to the business owner who objects to IUDs? What happens to Catholic institutions? What happens to other persons of faith or persons of conscience who object to birth control on a religious or moral basis? Must they choose between violating their conscience or closing their business to avoid crippling fines? That hardly seems fair.

A narrow religious exemption from the contraception mandate is provided. However, as many have pointed out, this exemption does not apply to many religious organizations.⁵

It’s not too late to provide for a broader conscientious objection to the contraception mandate. But it will take the voices of concerned citizens to ensure that their rights of conscience are protected.

¹ Conscientious Objector.  The Free Dictionary.  http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Conscientious+objectors

²Conscientious Objection Fact Sheet.  http://girightshotline.org/en/military-knowledge-base/topic/conscientious-objection-discharge#topic-the-process

³Obamacare Conscience Issues Put Catholic Health Care at Risk  http://www.lifenews.com/2011/12/15/obamacare-conscience-issues-put-catholic-health-care-at-risk/

⁴ Obamacare Contraception Mandate Takes Effect http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/01/obamacare-contraception-mandate-takes-effect/

⁵Obamacare, Religion, and the Court http://www.american.com/archive/2012/march/obamacare-religion-and-the-court

A ballot initiative in Massachusetts may make physician-assisted suicide legal in that state. If approved, Massachusetts would join Washington and Oregon (and by a state Supreme Court ruling, Wisconsin) in allowing terminal patients to choose an early death by a doctor’s prescription. Our guest is Dr. Chuck Dolph, Professor of Psychology and Center for Bioethics Fellow, who will help us discuss the ethics of medically-assisted suicide.

Article in the New York Review of Books

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To listen, just click on the player below (click on the Audio MP3 button if the player doesn’t appear).

Should Doctors Help You to Die? [ 28:54 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

When I was a kid in school, I’d inhale my lunch, so I could go outside and play touch football.  At the small Christian school that my parents started, kids from grade school through high school would play touch football in all kinds of weather.  There were a couple of important rules we played by: don’t squash the little kids, and three completed passes gets you a first down.

When no adults were around, we did our best to organize teams with matched talent. We had combinations of long and short plays. We got muddy, and had fun, and probably smelled rather ripe going into our afternoon classes. But when my Dad was around, he encouraged us to play “boys against girls.”  He played on the girls’ team. Maybe my memory has faded, but I don’t recall a single instance when the girls’ team lost.

My dad didn’t play on our team to run the big play. In fact, when he was on our team, we pretty much had one play: take two steps, turn around, and catch the ball. All we wanted was a completion. Because three completed passes gets you a first down.

The shortest kid could throw the ball. The slowest kid could catch it. Talent didn’t matter; we were all involved. It took forever to get to the end zone, but get there we did, because every first down kept the drive alive.

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Sometimes we who defend the value of human life get discouraged. We want the flea flicker, or the Hail Mary pass. We want the 80-yard completion that gets Roe v. Wade overturned, or the 50-yard field goal that bans research on human embryos. We want to end human trafficking today! We want an end zone celebration!

But when a young mother chooses adoption over abortion, that’s a “completed pass” on behalf of life. When adult stem cell research leads to another successful medical treatment, we just completed another “pass.” When people raise awareness about human trafficking, leading to laws that protect innocent humans enslavement, that’s another “completion.” In this game, anyone can make a difference. Your gender, your size, your talents don’t matter – keep the “end zone” in sight. Compassion and respect for human persons will take you to places where real people have real needs. You can help meet them.

So don’t give up. Because three completions gets you a first down. And another first down is all that it takes to keep the drive alive.

A woman is more than the sum of her reproductive parts.

But the narrative coming from politicians and the media these days seems to contradict this fact.  Those who desire to protect innocent human persons in the womb are often portrayed as anti-woman.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

I celebrate the rights that we American women have.  We can vote, run for office, own businesses, and serve our country in the military.  My daughters can dream as big as they like, and use their God-given talents however they choose. Together we can work hard and accomplish big things.  But that doesn’t mean we have to support abortion.

In our culture today, abortion rights have become synonymous with women’s rights.  This is a travesty.  I can think of few things that hurt women more than abortion.  Abortion is a tool of genocide, which has been used in many nations as a tool for gender discrimination.  Sex selection by abortion has killed untold numbers of Chinese and Indian women, who would have been allowed to live if they had been male.  Fortunately, recent changes in Indian law may help curb this genocide.¹

In the US, where most abortions are done for convenience rather than for gender selection, abortions still hurt women.²  The physical and psychological side-effects of abortion are well-documented, and physical side effects of the procedure are acknowledged even by the pro-abortion community.³  Abortion leaves physical and emotional scars on women, while depriving unborn persons of their “inalienable rights” to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Can I support women’s rights while opposing abortion?  Absolutely.  Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do the same.

By Heather Kuruvilla, Ph.D., Center for Bioethics Fellow

Articles Cited:

1. http://india.nydailynews.com/newsarticle/5058ae5dc3d4cabe3c000000/india-to-jail-families-who-coerce-women-into-abortions
2. http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/ASMF/index.html#Is_Abortion_Safe
3. http://www.prochoice.org/education/cme/online_cme/m2expected2.asp

A prominent ethicist, writing in the pages of Reader’s Digest, no less, Julian Savulescu is the Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics at Oxford University, UK. In an upcoming edition of RD, he claims it is not only permissible, but a moral obligation, for parents to genetically design their children. After all, claims Savulescu, we wouldn’t want to trust in the “natural lottery” for our children’s characteristics. They might have cystic fibrosis or Down’s syndrome, or they may have adverse psychological profiles such as poor impulse control or a propensity towards violence.

You may say, “But that sounds an awful lot like eugenics.” Here is Dr. Savulescu’s response:

Much of the unease about designer babies comes from the work of the 20th-century eugenics movement. It tried to use selective breeding to weed out criminals, the insane and the poor, based on the false belief that such conditions were caused only by genetic disorders. It reached its inglorious climax when the Nazis moved beyond sterilization to exterminate the “genetically unfit.”

But what was especially objectionable about this movement was the coercive imposition of a state vision for a healthy population. Modern eugenics, from testing for diseases to deciding whether you want a girl or boy, is voluntary. So where genetic selection aims to bring out a trait that clearly benefits an individual and society, we should allow parents the choice. To do otherwise is to consign those who come after us to the ball and chain of our squeamishness and irrationality.

So, according to Savulescu, all of this is acceptable because it’s voluntary for parents. No one gets hurt. Of course, if we were to agree with him, we would still be exterminating the “genetically unfit:” unborn embryos tossed out with the refuse of our throwaway society. In this version of modern-day eugenics, we can now snuff out small human beings who can’t speak up for themselves.

Society is becoming increasingly comfortable with these ideas. We have forgotten the lessons of the Third Reich, and are once again concluding that some human beings are “life unworthy of life.” If Savulescu has his way, his thinking will not only be acceptable, but required.

Reader’s Digest Article