BIOETHICS AND MORALITY

Bioethics
branch of applied ethics that studies the philosophical, social, and legal issues
arising in medicine and the life sciences.
(It is primarily concerned with human life and well-being, though it also addresses
ethical issues concerning the nonhuman biological system on occasion. Bioethics,
however, is broader than this, because some of the issues it encompasses concern
not so much the practice of health care as the conduct and results of research in
the life sciences, especially in areas such as cloning and gene
therapy (see clone and genetic engineering), stem cell research,
xenotransplantation (animal-to-human transplantation), and human longevity. )

Issues in bioethics
1. The health care context

(The issues studied in bioethics can be grouped into several categories. One
category concerns the relationship between doctor and patient, including issues
that arise from conflicts between a doctor’s duty to promote the health of his
patient and the patient’s right to self-determination or autonomy, a right that in
the medical context is usually taken to encompass a right to be fully informed
about one’s condition and a right to be consulted about the course of one’s
treatment. )

2. Traditional philosophical questions

(Another category of issues concerns a host of philosophical questions about the

definition and significance of life and death, the nature of personhood and
identity, and the extent of human freedom and individual responsibility. )

3. Social and legal issues

(Many of these philosophical questions, however they are answered, have

significant social and legal dimensions. For example, advances in
medical technology have the potential to create disproportionate disadvantages
for some social groups, either by being applied in ways that harm members of the
groups directly or by encouraging the adoption of social policies that discriminate
unfairly against them. Accordingly, questions of discrimination in bioethics have
arisen in a number of areas. In one such area, reproductive medicine, recently
developed techniques have enabled parents to choose the sex of their child.
Should this new power be considered liberating or oppressive? Would it be viewed
positively if the vast majority of the parents who use it choose to have a boy
rather than a girl? Similar concerns have been raised about the increasing use
of abortion as a method of birth control in overpopulated countries such as India
and China, where there is considerable social and legal pressure to limit family
size and where male children are valued more highly than female children.)
The four-principles of bioethics
1. Autonomy
- entails that health care professionals should respect
the autonomous decisions of competent adults. (In its simplest sense, autonomy is
about a person's ability to act on his or her own values and interests. Taken from
ancient Greek, the word means 'self-legislation' or 'self-governance. In order
to do these things, the autonomous person must have a sense of self-worth and
self-respect. )

2. Beneficence
- holds that they should aim to do good (The ordinary meaning of this
principle is that health care providers have a duty to be of a benefit to the
patient, as well as to take positive steps to prevent and to remove harm from the
patient. These duties are viewed as rational and self-evident and are widely
accepted as the proper goals of medicine. Â This principle is at the very heart of
health care implying that a suffering supplicant (the patient) can enter into a
relationship with one whom society has licensed as competent to provide medical
care, trusting that the physician’s chief objective is to help. The goal of
providing benefit can be applied both to individual patients, and to the good of
society as a whole. For example, the good health of a particular patient is an
appropriate goal of medicine, and the prevention of disease through research and
the employment of vaccines is the same goal expanded to the population at large.)

3. Nonmaleficence
- states that a medical practitioner has a duty to do no harm or allow harm
to be caused to a patient through neglect. (The principle of nonmaleficence
requires of us that we not intentionally create a harm or injury to the patient,
either through acts of commission or omission. In common language, we consider
it negligent if one imposes a careless or unreasonable risk of harm upon another.
Providing a proper standard of care that avoids or minimizes the risk of harm is
supported not only by our commonly held moral convictions, but by the laws of
society as well . This principle affirms the need for medical competence. It is
clear that medical mistakes may occur; however, this principle articulates a
fundamental commitment on the part of health care professionals to protect their
patients from harm.)

4. Justice
-in health care is usually defined as a form of fairness, or as Aristotle once said,
"giving to each that which is his due." (This implies the fair distribution of goods in
society and requires that we look at the role of entitlement. The question of
distributive justice also seems to hinge on the fact that some goods and services are in
short supply, there is not enough to go around, thus some fair means of allocating
scarce resources must be determined.
It is generally held that persons who are equals should qualify for equal treatment.
This is borne out in the application of Medicare, which is available to all persons over
the age of 65 years. This category of persons is equal with respect to this one factor,
their age, but the criteria chosen says nothing about need or other noteworthy factors
about the persons in this category. In fact, our society uses a variety of factors as
criteria for distributive justice, including the following:

1. To each person an equal share

 2. To each person according to need
3. To each person according to effort
4. To each person according to contribution
5. To each person according to merit
6. To each person according to free-market exchanges)

Christian Morality
Christian morality is our belief in the God who created all things and in Jesus who
taught us even better how to live. (We believe we are created in God’s image and
that we, and all creation, are basically good. Yet we recognize our own tendencies
toward evil, especially in an excess of our desires. The Ten Commandments are
part of the code known to the early Israelites that helped them to live better lives
in relationship with Yahweh. We believe in the same values, with certain changes
because of our knowledge of Jesus Christ.

We believe Jesus, as God become human “God among us,” has most truly shown us
how to live. Our moral life is based on trying to live and treat others as Jesus
did.The Bible is the primary source for information on the life of Jesus. In it,
we find that the Reign of God (or Kingdom of God) is the central focus of Jesus’
teaching.

Exactly what the Reign of God might mean is not clear. However, we know that it
is a way of living which transforms us when we live it and transforms the world
when our actions are consistent with it. At the core of the teaching are the
two commandments: “Love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, your whole
soul, your whole mind, and with all your strength” and “Love your neighbor as
yourself.” This implies that a certain selflessness is an intrinsic part of the Reign
of God, where we treat others as though they were Christ, since we see Christ in
them. Jesus demanded faith of his followers (miracles only happened for people
of faith) and ongoing conversion (repentance), recognizing that we will never do
all that we could. But Jesus challenged all to become his disciples, leaving home
and possessions, and “taking up your cross.” Thus, it is not always easy to follow
his teachings. The Catholic Church maintains this ideal, that we all should be
trying to live a perfect life. Since we know that it is not possible, we
have sacraments like Reconciliation, penitential rites at Mass, and one time
during the year (Lent) when we try to focus on our own lives and how we are
continually called to be better. We must, as Jesus’ followers, always continue to
strive to be better, without focusing on the mistakes of the past.)

Individual Christian Morality

The individual teachings are based on trying to help individuals be the kind of
person a Christian is called to become. (Again, this is not a light or easy
undertaking. Rather than following a set of rules, we are called to constant
conversion: a process by which our whole life is shaped by the gospel message. We
are to make God the center and source of our being. We are to allow ourselves to
be transformed by that redemptive, healing presence of God and then allow God
to continue to work through us to redeem and heal others and the whole world,
enemies as well as friends, the outcasts as well as the respectable, the poor as
well as the rich, sinners as well as the righteous; a constant process of conversion.
How do we do this? We have to keep trying to find our way. One person asked if it
meant that we give up all we had. Jesus did ask a rich young man to do just that.
If we cannot, then perhaps we are too materialistic. If much of our time is
focused on having a BMW, Porsche, a big house, monthly vacation, a large varied
wardrobe, etc., then maybe we have strayed from the gospel message that says
we are to share our surplus with those who have less.)

Guilt? Sin?
(Within the context of conversion, one always needs to look at the past in order
to critique our actions, such as during Lent. This is important so that we can
choose how we want to act in the future. We are not to keep looking back! Guilt,
as a motivation to do better next time, can be good; guilt, as a looking back,
cannot be good. We are generally familiar with the latter, since it is used by many
parents. A general focus on individual sin in the past has lead often to an
emphasis on guilt. A focus on continued conversion can get away from too strong
an emphasis on guilt and sin.

Because of an overemphasis on sin and guilt, they have not been strongly preached
in the last couple decades. It does not mean that we somehow no longer believe in
personal sin. With an emphasis on our relationship with God, we can recognize
when we do not live up to that relationship (when we sin) without an
overemphasis that focuses too much on the act itself.

Interestingly, an overemphasis on relationship with God can, if we let it,

undermine our own sense of ongoing conversion. We can get to the point where we
think of our individual relationship as “good enough” and have no sense of all the
more we could do, if we only recognized it.)

Conscience
(The basis for moral decisions is an informed conscience. We have the
responsibility to “train” our conscience based on studying the gospel message,
Church teachings, our own education and experience and follow it! This does not
mean doing whatever we want, but what we come to know as right, even if it is
difficult, especially if it is difficult!

We know that following our conscience does not guarantee that we will not make
mistakes. One of the best gauges we can use to try to prayerfully evaluate our
conscience is to look back on our actions periodically and compare them to the
ideals in the gospel stories (e.g. Luke 6:27-38: Love your enemies, turn the other
cheek, do good to those who hate you, give to others).