dcnovice
Posts: 37282
Joined: 8/2/2006
Status: offline
|
quote:
Talk about fucked up.....
Seriously.
I spent way too much of the afternoon debating this on Facebook.
Friend of a Friend (FOF): Wellll, it IS a valid argument given the precedent set by the Catholics' political opponents.
Moral: Be careful of the legal precedent you set, you may not like it when it bites you on your moral ass.
Me: Fair point about the legal precedent. I don't blame the hospital system for using whatever legal strategies it can. But the story does raise questions (for me, at least) about the moral and teaching authority of the RCC. The Church has not only taught that life and personhood begin at conception, but it has argued for enshrining that belief into law, binding even those who see the issue very differently.
That, imho, raises the question of consistency/hypocrisy. If the Church truly believes its teachings on fetal personhood, shouldn't it stand by them even when doing so comes at some cost? After all, Ignatius Loyola counseled us to give and not to count the cost.
Reflecting on this news story, I can't keep from thinking of Luke 11:46: "And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers."
FOF: The legal constructs and the moral ones are vastly different.
I'm sure the doctors involved cried quite a bit that night, but at the end of the day, the lawsuit happens within the constructs of the legal system, which have clearly said that's a lump of tissue, not a person. And it's just sweet irony that the Catholics get to turn that back around on the gov't that said so.
Me: I agree about the difference between legal and moral constructs. and i certainly see the irony in the RCC's taking advantage of legal constructs that rest on premises starkly at odds with its teaching. But is that irony sweet? For a church that claims infallibility to abandon its teachings in order to save some cash? To use cagy lawyering to escape "burdens" (Jesus' word, not mine) it lays on its adherents and attempts to impose on society as a whole? That strikes as more sour than sweet, alas.
FOF: Well, let's NOT confuse "the church" with "the church-affiliated hospital". It's not quite the same thing.
This is the classic application of the "render unto Caesar" principle. Obey THEIR laws and play by THEIR rules. And their rules say "you don't have to pay out here."
Me: That honestly sounds like a distinction without a difference, aka hair-splitting. I don't recall Catholic hospitals' drawing that distinction when the HHS mandate was a hot issue. And CHI's own mission statement, front and center on its website, talks about nurturing "the healing ministry of the Church" and "fidelity to the Gospel."
FOF: When you can use the enemy's rules against them, to make a point, so much the better.
Me: I can see that in politics and p.r. But not in the realm of theology and (purportedly God-given) morality. The RCC has long said,"We believe in the personhood of the zygote/embryo/fetus, and we want that belief enacted into law." Now it's adding a qualifier: "except when it costs us." That makes it seem like the moral structure rests on sand rather than rock (Mt: 7:24-27).
FOF: One can argue that if the Church can - by saving money - make a point about the status of those fetuses, then it's doing God's work, as it were.
ie., nothing can be done to save anyone's life at this point. So EITHER the church-run hospital can keep its money in its coffers and use this opportunity to make a point, or it can pay out money quietly and get screwed by the gov't when it's convenient for the gov't to call those fetuses "humans".
I'm sorry, but I'm completely on the hospital's side here. There's a point to making a point, no pun intended.
Me: Refusing, for financial gain, to extend the Church's (and the hospital's) longstanding and loudly trumpeted definition of personhood to the two Stodghill fetuses that died of apparent malpractice at St. Thomas More may indeed be a crafty legal strategy and perhaps even a clever p.r. ploy. But "doing God's work"? Not hardly. This is a page from the pharisees' book, I think.
_____________________________
No matter how cynical you become,
it's never enough to keep up.
JANE WAGNER, THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF
INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
|
In malpractice case, Catholic hospital argues fetuses a... - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread