Where the Rubber Hits the Road

Here is the position of the Catholic Church on when it is acceptable to remove extraordinary means of care for people in a permanently vegetative state, at least as it applies to nutrition and hydration: The church’s view is that giving food and water to a person through a feeding tube is not a medical intervention but basic care . This is always a difficult area in which to balance the moral, religious, pastoral and practical issues of someone that we love in life. I pray that this clear guideline might make the decision easier for families to make in difficult times. Click here if you want to read the original documen t

“Human geneticists have reached a private crisis of conscience, and it will become public knowledge in 2010. The crisis has depressing health implications and alarming political ones. In a nutshell: the new genetics will reveal much less than hoped about how to cure disease, and much more than feared about human evolution and inequality, including genetic differences between classes, ethnicities and races.” This is the lead into an article found in The Economist by Geoffrey Mille r in which he examines the advances and trials of genetic research. His concern seem to be that further exploration down this “yellow brick road” might nor bring us to “Kansas” but instead might provide fodder or justification for the type of ethnic based violence that marked so many years with the last century. I do find it interesting that the great concern is that such research might bring about a widespread conflict between humans of difference ethnicities, but seem to have little concern about the pos...

The Catholic Exchange offers a review on what they say is an excellent source book for understanding Catholic bioethics. The review can be found here. Sounds like it would be a super Christmas gift for a priest (hint, hint... if any of my family are reading this).