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The Anglican Church of Canada has authorized clergy to bless people being euthanized just before, during, and after being lethally jabbed (when permitted by the bishop). From “Pastoral Liturgies at the Time of Death in Contexts of Medically Assisted Dying”: It is not our intent to enter into the ethical arguments regarding MAiD, nor to provide a moral argument for or against MAiD.…No matter where people are in their life journey, we as a Christian community and Christian leaders in particular are called to respond pastorally to the needs and concerns of the people before us. Wherever the church serves, we are the Body of Christ reaching out to the suffering, the sick, and the dying. When someone reaches out Read More ›

The media is (properly) reporting that a Dutch doctor euthanized — i.e. killed — a sick twelve-year-old child (illness not reported). It is a “first” under a new Dutch law that allows euthanasia for children ages one to twelve. From the story in The Independent: In a latter to parliament, Dutch health minister Sophie Hermans said that the child had died last year but did not clarify their age, date of death or the illness that they suffered, according to broadcaster NOS. The law in the Netherlands was changed in 2014 to extend euthanasia to children under the age of 12 to allow them to “die with dignity” if there was no route to escape extremely severe pain or suffering. Read More ›

In Quebec, a small town has granted “rights” to trees. From the CBC story: A small town west of Montreal has decided to officially recognize trees as living beings with rights of their own, in what an environmental organization describes as a first in Quebec and Canada. A resolution adopted by Terrasse-Vaudreuil city council on June 9 declares that trees are worthy of protection, “including the right to life, to natural growth, to integrity and to regeneration.” Does a “right to life” mean they can’t be cut down? Does the “right to natural growth” mean they can’t be trimmed or cleared for fire safety? Does the “right to regeneration” mean that saplings must be allowed to grow in place and Read More ›

The Lancet just published an editorial that essentially supports unlimited migration — although it doesn’t use that term — and makes no distinction between legal and illegal immigration. From, “Migration a Reality, Not an Emergency:” Migration is among the oldest facts of human life, yet it is treated as one of the newest emergencies: anti-immigration protests have intensified in the UK and immigration raids have swept US cities. As we mark World Refugee Day, the follow-up Review to the 2018 UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health, published in this issue, renews the Commission’s call for action and asks whether, in a climate shaped by fear, evidence can still drive policy. The editorial ignores international and national laws. In the United Read More ›

Here we go again. Several years ago, the radical Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) sued in New York to have chimps declared “persons.” The case lost in the trial court and, ultimately, the court of appeals (the highest court in the state) refused to review it.

But one high-court judge took the time to issue a concurring opinion (citing an animal-rights-promoting book) opining that while review would have been wrong, whether chimps should be proper subjects for a writ of habeas corpus is appropriate, in part because denying the right is “based on nothing more than the premise that a chimpanzee is not a member of the human species.”

Next, the NhRP brought a lawsuit in New York to have a (now deceased) elephant named Happy, which (not who!) had resided at the Bronx Zoo for decades, declared a person. The lawsuit lost but did better. Not only did the court of appeals hear the case, but two — count ’em, two — judges out of seven said that Happy should be declared a person with rights and, moreover, ludicrously compared the differing treatment between animals and humans with the discriminatory laws that once allowed slavery and denied equality to women.

In recent years, the term “service provider” has been deployed widely as a descriptor for doctors and other medical professionals. That’s unfortunate, as the terminology de-professionalizes those who work and study for years to become expert at delivering medical treatments, interventions, diagnoses, and counseling. And it concomitantly threatens to transform patients into mere customers; doctors, essentially into so many order takers.

Some physicians’ organizations have noticed the trend and are pushing back. A few months ago, an opinion article in the Annals of Internal Medicine argued that using the term “service provider” has negative ethical implications. From “Physicians are not Providers” (citations omitted):

First, the current use of provider in reference to institutions, insurers, physicians, nurses, physician assistants, and other clinicians lumps impersonal entities in with humans and obscures differences in clinical training and expertise.…

Second, the duties of physicians differ from those of individuals and entities who deliver commercial and other services.…This partnership is not transactional but rather relational.…

Third, use of the term provider undermines ethics and professionalism. Medicine is dedicated to serving others whose trust must be earned. As quoted in the ACP Ethics Manual, Francis Peabody said that medicine is not “a trade to be learned, but a profession to be entered,” with publicly declared values (in Latin, the “profess” in “profession”) and ethical duties to uphold.…

Fourth, language not only affects the perception and value attributed to what is being provided but can also alter one’s professional sense of self and influence behavior. Communication and language are key. To quote Robert M. McLean, MD, former president of ACP, “Patients share things with us that they share with nobody else, including close family.” Language should focus on “health and not healthcare, on relationships and not transactions, and on people and not products.”

That makes abundant sense to me.

In 50 BC, the great Roman statesman Cicero expressed a thought that has been echoed by thinkers down the generations: “The celestial order and beauty of the universe compel me to admit that there is some excellent and eternal Being who deserves the respect and homage of men.” But in our own day, the evolutionary biologist and atheism proselytizer Richard Read More ›

Gallup just issued its annual poll on “moral acceptability.” I was struck by the dramatically different results in the two questions about suicide.

The first question asked about “doctor assisted suicide.” Close to a majority, 49 percent, of respondents answered that committing suicide with a doctor’s help is morally acceptable, while 45 percent responded that it is not.

The other question asked simply about the moral acceptability of “suicide.” Strikingly, only 21 percent said that it is morally acceptable to take one’s own life, while a whopping 70 percent said it is not. Indeed, suicide was one of the lowest “morally acceptable” behaviors in the entire poll. Only cloning humans, polygamy, and extramarital affairs had a lower moral acceptability rating.

That’s quite a paradox. So, what’s going on? Why the wide disparity in answering two questions that are about the same issue?

Seven miscarriages. Two living children. Countless questions. What does it actually feel like to lose a child through miscarriage? What happens when the pregnancy test line starts fading and you realize you’re about to lose another baby? Why do so many women feel completely unprepared for the physical, emotional, and spiritual reality of miscarriage, despite the fact that roughly 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in miscarriage? In this deeply personal and moving conversation, Gabriela Anastasopoúlou shares her journey through a miscarriage, becoming a mom to her son, followed by seven miscarriages and secondary infertility, and the eventual birth of her daughter after years of unanswered questions and heartbreak. Gabriela opens up about: As a civil rights attorney and advocate for Read More ›

The utilitarian bioethicist Peter Singer opposes human exceptionalism. Indeed, he contends that being human is irrelevant to determining moral value. What counts are capacities and the ability to suffer. Singer advocates using the term “person” to identify individuals with the highest moral value. Since he believes that personhood is based on capacities, some humans are not persons — the unborn, infants, the profoundly cognitively disabled — while some animals are. This means that those animals matter more morally than the vulnerable humans he so casually depersonalizes. It is thus unsurprising that Singer takes issue with Pope Leo’s encyclical on AI because of the document’s stalwart defense of universal human rights and its intense focus on the impact AI will have Read More ›