Category Archives: Sanctity of Life

Margaret Somerville/Wanda Morris Debate Assisted Dying on HuffPo. So far, Margaret is Winning!

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Over at the Huffington Post there is a debate between Margaret Somerville, purported ethicist from McGill University in Montreal, and Wanda Morris, Executive Director of Dying with Dignity (Canada), the voice for choice at the end of life in Canada. Somerville, as is her wont, brings out all the usual suspects, none of which are really compelling, and all of which depend on two things, making you afraid of it, and claiming that it’s simply — it’s really that simple folks! — wrong to kill people. She forgets, of course, that people have been killing other people since the dawn of time, and will go on doing it. Certainly, many acts of killing are wrong and to be regretted and condemned, but merely saying that something is a matter of killing another human being is not enough all on its own to make it wrong.

Margaret’s biggest argument — the real big argument so far as Somerville is concerned — is that permitting the act of assisting someone in great suffering to die (she doesn’t like that euphemism, so we’ll come back to it) is changing something fundamental about the way in which we regard human life, and it will bring about untold changes in our society, and may — in fact she is sure that it will — change the way we regard killing others, so that legalising it in the case of those who choose to die in order to end their suffering will set society off on a slippery slope to disaster and depravity. She’s said this numerous times before, and she puts so much weight on it that it really constitutes her main argument against assisted dying (a ”sanitised” form of language that she deplores, but we will come back to that). Margaret’s problem, not to put too fine a point on it, is that she is left asking a vague question about the future: “What long term effects might result from that?” She doesn’t know, but she has this in common with the pope: she believes firmly that this will usher in a “culture of death,” if it hasn’t already arrived, and that there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth because we didn’t listen to Jeremiahs like her.

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The Irish bishops’ feather-weight fudge – but real women die!

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The Irish parliament (or Dáil) has defeated an proposed interim measure concerning abortion, which (according to The Journal.ie)

would have provided an interim legislative arrangement as required by the Council of Europe, for termination of pregnancy where as a matter of probability a real and substantial risk to the life of the pregnant woman exists.

The measure was defeated 104 votes to 27! The Catholic bullies are in good heart today — which reminds me of the remark by Edmund Burke, in his Reflections on the Revolution in France:

He is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.

Sadly, the Irish parliament did not even try to imagine themselves into the lives of women faced with the prospect of dying, because they are pregnant. The flourishes of Roman Catholic ethics get the required genuflection; women are denied justice. This is what happens when the Roman Catholic Church gets control of a place. Remember this! For more on this visit Jerry Coyne’s website here. To the glue factory with them! Inhuman thoughtless bastards, the whole fucking lot of them!

The orignal post follows:

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From the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Office:

The death of Mrs. Savita Halappanavar and her unborn child in University Hospital Galway on the 28 October last was a devastating personal tragedy for her husband and family. It has stunned our country. We share the anguish and sorrow expressed by so many at the tragic loss of a mother and her baby in these circumstances and we express our sympathy to the family of Mrs. Halappanavar and all those affected by these events.

In light of the widespread discussion following the tragic death of Mrs Halappanavar and her unborn baby, we wish to reaffirm some aspects of Catholic moral teaching. These were set out in our recently published Day for Life message on 7 October last, available on http://www.chooselife2012.ie.

- The Catholic Church has never taught that the life of a child in the womb should be preferred to that of a mother. By virtue of their common humanity, a mother and her unborn baby are both sacred with an equal right to life.

- Where a seriously ill pregnant woman needs medical treatment which may put the life of her baby at risk, such treatments are ethically permissible provided every effort has been made to save the life of both the mother and her baby.

- Whereas abortion is the direct and intentional destruction of an unborn baby and is gravely immoral in all circumstances, this is different from medical treatments which do not directly and intentionally seek to end the life of the unborn baby. Current law and medical guidelines in Ireland allow nurses and doctors in Irish hospitals to apply this vital distinction in practice while upholding the equal right to life of both a mother and her unborn baby.

- Some would claim that the unborn baby is less human or less deserving of life. Advances in genetics and technology make it clear that at fertilization a new, unique and genetically complete human being comes into existence. From that moment onwards each of us did not grow and develop into a human being, but grew and developed as a human being.

With many other religious and ethical traditions we believe in upholding the equal and inalienable right to life of a mother and her unborn child in our laws and medical practice. This helps to ensure that women and babies receive the highest standard of care and protection during pregnancy.

Indeed, international statistics confirm that Ireland, without abortion, remains one of the safest countries in the world in which to be pregnant and to give birth. This is a position that should continue to be cherished and strengthened in the interests of mothers and unborn children in Ireland.

Thus the Irish bishops as published in First Things. I had decided to put sanctity-of-life issues on the shelf for a while, and yet, here, in black and white, are several reasons for raising it once more. Indeed, the statement itself makes me very angry, and renews my sense that the church must be marginalised and kept far from the law. But the Catholic hierarchy will simply not be content until they see their principles applied everywhere, so that no one has any more control over their care than Savita Halappanavar was given by the paternalistic officialdom of the University Hospital in Galway.

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The Principle of Double Effect, Abortion, Assisted Dying and the Religous idea of the Sanctity of Life. Putting Religion out to Grass

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Under an earlier post, Scott McKenna, who wants, as many of you will know, to continue using the conception of the sanctity of life, though not, he says, in an absolute sense, remarked as follows:

The Church of Scotland states that there are circumstances in which it is permissible to have an abortion, such as when the life of the mother is at risk.   No absolute sanctity here.

The claim, I think, that there is no absolute sanctity here, is questionable. It is possible, in various ways, to work around the notion of absolute sanctity so as to produce justifications for acts in which a death occurs. This is what the Principle of Double Effect (PDE) is all about. Its purpose is to preserve the idea of sanctity while at the same time preventing the sanctity of life from producing counterintuitive consequences.

The PDE has its origin in Thomas Aquinas’ defence of killing in self-defence, which is worthwhile quoting in some detail. You can find it in his Summa Theologica, II-II, Question 64, Article 7: “Whether it is Lawful to Kill a Man in Self-defence?” In response to the objections to the claim that it is, Aquinas answers as follows:

I answer that Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention. Now moral acts take their species according to what is intended, and not according to what is beside the intention, since this is accidental as explained above. Accordingly the act of self-defence may have two effects, one is the saving of one’s life, the other is the slaying of the aggressor. Therefore this act, since one’s intention is to save one’s own life, is not unlawful, seeing it is natural to everything to keep itself in being, as far as possible. And yet, though proceeding from a good intention, an act may be rendered unlawful, if it be out of proportion to the end. Wherefore if a man, in self-defence, uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repel force with moderation his defence will be lawful, because according to the jurists, “it is lawful to repel force by force, provided one does not exceed the limits of a blameless defence.”

Now, it is clear, I think, that the PDE as thus understood can easily serve its turn in justifying abortion where the woman’s life is in danger. The Roman Catholic Church seems to be under the misapprehension that, if saving the mother involves the “direct” killing of the foetus, the PDE does not apply, as was argued in the case of the woman in Phoenix, when a nun was excommunicated on the strength of this misunderstanding of Aquinas’ argument.

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The meaning of ‘sanctity-of-life’ – II

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My last post on this subject did not get the response that I had hoped for. Perhaps you feel, as Paxton did, that the whole thing was irrelevant, because apparently tied so closely to scriptural exegesis. Or perhaps assisted dying is not your thing, and you wish I would get back to hammering the religions. Well, but that is precisely what I am, by indirection, doing. And that is the reason for exploring the meaning of ‘sanctity’ in religious tradition. It seems to me to be vital, if we are to cut the nerve of those things that are preventing the electorate and legislatures from dealing with the problem of assisted dying in a way that is free from religious prejudice and the intrusion of religious concepts in secular discourse, that we fully appreciate the resonance of that word ‘sanctity’ and how it affects our ability to think clearly about assisted dying.

The word itself, as I tried to show in my last post, comes from a uniquely religious context. The sacred is something not only set apart. It is also unapproachable. Churches maintain this unapproachability in ritual ways by placing the sacred in sacred hands. Thus, when a priest is ordained, his hands are anointed with holy oil, and set apart for the handling of holy things. And then those holy things are separated, in a hierarchical way, in churches, so that the ordinary lay person is always at a distance from holy things, which must be approached with solemnity and reverence. These things reinforce in the minds of people what is meant by the sacred.

Let me quote from Michel Onfray’s book, Atheist Manifesto. He is speaking about what he calls “ontological contamination,” and how the practice of medicine is inevitably affected by it:

The current hypersensitivity [he writes] on the subject of bioethics proceeds from this invisible influence. Secular political decisions on this major issue more or less correspond to positions formulated by the church. This should be no surprise, for the ethos of bioethics remains fundamentally Judeo-Christian. [48]

And the idea of the sacred is uppermost in dictating this outcome. So long as we use this word, and think in terms of the sacredness or sanctity of life, we are bound to the wheel of Christian (and other religious) thought. The kind of absolute reverence which is required by the sacred, which is so evident in the handling of sacred things, continues to work its magic on our thought, even when we are least aware of this. So it is vital to get this into perspective. Even when the churches themselves seem to be talking in secular terms, as I pointed out yesterday, they continue to respect, in a subtext, the prescriptions dictated by the assumption of sanctity. That is why I oppose, and will continue to oppose, the use of the term ‘sanctity-of-life’ in the context of arguing for the right of all people to receive assistance in dying when their lives have become occasions for intolerable suffering that only death can relieve. My references in the last post to the way that the idea of the sacred functions in sacred scripture was not, as Paxton suggests, because I am still tied to scripture, but because I am quite as aware as Onfray is of the continued effect of these texts on our contemporary moral discourse; further progress demands that we get rid of this language. That is precisely why, while I applaud Scott McKenna’s support for assisted dying, I cannot approve the continued use of language which has a tendency to keep us anchored so firmly in the past, when what we need is something entirely new.

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What does ‘sanctity-of-life’ mean? – I

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Warning — some important edits made after publication!

One of the problems with this blog is that I tend to be very wordy, and most of my posts are of short article length. That alone is a filter of some significance. But what is more daunting for some is the fact that the comments after posts are as long as, and sometimes longer than, the post itself. Not only is this pretty demanding, but it also means that sometimes continuity is lost. It is one thing for a few of us to discuss things at length in the comments, but that doesn’t help connect the dots from post to post.

That introduction is merely to indicate that what I write here is not only a continuation of my preceding posts on assisted dying and sanctity-of-life issues, but tries to take into consideration some of the comments that have been made as well. I often do this without mentioning it, but in this case it seemed important because it so obviously takes off not only from the last post, but from the comments after it, and from comments after some earlier posts as well. It’s part of a fairly large-scale conversation, so if you think you are missing some key links in the chain, they are probably hidden in the comments of the last three or four posts. I will, nevertheless, try to keep this as self-contained as I can, but I am aware as I write that I am thinking around through ideas that have probably been more fully expressed elsewhere.

I want to begin, then, by asking what it means to say that life is sacred, because it is not obvious what this means. Scott McKenna thinks that we can retain our idea of the sanctity-of-life at the same time that we permit assisted dying. Here is what he says:

Despite the absolutist rhetoric of the churches on the sanctity of life (perhaps save the Roman Catholic Church), most churches and many, if not most Christians (certainly in my experience) happily live with both concepts of sanctity and quality.   I discard the absolutist position because it is not morally defensible and it is, in reality, not the position of the churches.

I applaud the sentiment, but think that it would be better to express what he means by “sanctity-of-life” in some other way. I too think that the “absolutist position” is indefensible, but I also believe that the absolutist position is, in fact, the position of the churches. Not of all members of the churches, obviously, since many Christians disagree with the judicatories (that is, the administrative and legislative structures) of their churches. Thus most Catholics in the United States, for instance, disagree with their church’s official policy on abortion. It may sometimes appear that the absolutist position is not the official policy either. The Anglican Church of Canada, for example, while it discusses and dismisses the use of the sanctity-of-life criterion in its so-called “discussion paper,” ”Care in Dying,”  does not notice its implicit use of the sanctity-of-life criterion throughout. While it uses secular arguments to defeat the approval of assisted dying in any situation, none of its arguments can justify an absolute prohibition of assistance in dying. This surreptitious use of the sanctity-of-life doctrine is very common in Christian argumentation about this issue.

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The Problem with the Sanctity-of-Life Doctrine

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One of the things that having Scott McKenna’s comments have done for me is to force me to focus more attention on assisted dying. Of course, this blog is about that, but it’s also about opposing the interference of the religions in the right-to-die, and sometimes my opposition to religion gets the lion’s share of attention. I don’t regret that, because I do believe not only that religion is one of the biggest obstacles to assisted dying, but that, in other respects, religion is a harmful influence on society, and we would be better off if the religions would take an appropriately marginal place in society, and stop trying to impose their priorities on the rest of us. But I also acknowledge that I have not done as much work on assisted dying as I should have done, so the last few days have taken up the slack a bit, and I have Scott McKenna to thank for it.

I think it is important to note that Scott has received complaints from “head office” about his speaking out in favour of assisted dying, as he mentions in a comment. So, his standing with those who support assisted dying has not been without some cost for him, but, as he says, “head office” isn’t the church. There are people who don’t hew to the party line, and they are part of the church too. Indeed, we know this is true, for, despite the fact that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops tried very hard in the recent election to convince their members to support Mitt Romney, a majority of them, going by exit polls, did not. So, some Christians are better than their “head office” with their more worldly concerns of power and influence, and it is only fair to point this out, since my temptation sometimes is to tar all Christians, indeed, all religious people, with the same brush, and it is good to remember that many religious people, while remaining, according to their lights, loyal to the best that they see in the message of their religion, do not support the more extreme stands of their leaders.

Of course, one problem with this is that, by remaining in the church, those who oppose the church’s policies give the kind of support, in terms of numbers, that gives weight to church leaders when they speak in public and insist on being taken seriously by politicians and others in charge of public policy. For the churches, remaining relevant, in the sense of maintaining a powerful lobby position with the powers that be, is very important, since once you are truly marginalised, and no one in civil authority is listening to you, the less likely it is that you will be able to help shape laws which reflect the moral preferences of your particular organisation. A lot of people right now are saying that the Church of England has fouled its own nest, and has lost credibility, because, after decades of effort, the bid to enable women to be consecrated bishops has failed. A lot of people will feel that the Church of England is no longer a place for respectable people, because persisting in its rather petulant opposition to women bishops, while allowing women priests, they are showing a kind of selective sexism for which there is no justification. Needless to say, the Roman Catholic Church is worse in this respect, because they won’t allow women to become deacons let alone bishops, and, what with the latest scandal in the form of allowing a woman in Ireland to die, instead of performing a therapeutic abortion (of a miscarrying foetus), the message of the Roman Catholic Church about the value of women has been made rather brutally clear. I’m amazed that people still belong. Hilary Mantel, a few weeks ago, said that the Roman Catholic Church is no longer fit for respectable people, and I’m inclined to agree. If the only way to force change in the church is to refuse to associate with it and its antediluvian beliefs, then disassociation should be the order of the day.

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Sanctity of Life and its inviolability

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I have to admit that, before Scott McKenna proposed it, it seemed to me that you could not pry the sanctity and inviolability of life apart. As he says, quite clearly:

For me, sanctity of life does not necessarily equate with inviolability.   My argument is that God has given us moral responsibility.   We cannot ever say that God desires intolerable suffering of us and, in ending our life in such circumstances, we, as co-creators with God, are exercising compassion and God-given choice.   There are no ‘disastrous consequences’:  God is bigger than that.  It is precisely because God is compassionate that we have nothing to fear.    We have real moral choice:  we are not ‘sheep’.

This is, it needs to be said, contrary to what is normally meant by the sanctity of life, and, as for moral responsibility, religions have normally seen morality as a function of their belief in and loyalty to God, not something which can be separated from that belief or that commitment.

The Roman Catholic Church puts the point with its wonted bluntness. In its Declaration on Euthanasia it is quite clearly stated:

It is necessary to state firmly once more that nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action. For it is a question of the violation of the divine law, an offense against the dignity of the human person, a crime against life, and an attack on humanity. [my italics]

Of course, there is a qualification, bringing the principle of double effect into play, namely, that one may not intentionally bring about the death of an innocent human being. This expedient, however, is simply a band aid where a battle dressing is required. In her book The Sanctity of Life Doctrine in Medicine: A Critique, the Australian philosopher Helga Kuhse defines sanctity of life as follows:

It is absolutely prohibited either intentionally to kill a patient or intentionally to let a patient die, and to base decisions relating to the prolongation or shortening of human life on considerations of its quality or kind. [11; italics in original]

In  the light of these considerations, how can Scott McKenna claim that he supports the principle of the sanctity of life, and yet does not consider this principle absolute?

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Further progress in the “right-to-die” movement

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A lot of things have been happening lately in the right-to-die movement, and they are worth recording here. Perhaps the most powerful statement so far made was made by Tony Nicklinson, who, after losing his High Court case for the right to die, lost hear, refused to eat, and died a few days later, finally free of the burden of a life which was becoming increasingly intolerable for him. That the courts would not set a precedent — and there is no obvious reason why they could not — because this is a matter for a Parliament which has shown scant interest in the issue for years, was a great disappointment, not only to Tony, but to many other people who are seeking relief from intolerable conditions of life.

A lot of commentators have remarked that the court could not have acted, for to have acceded to Tony Nicklinson’s request would have been, effectively, to legalise euthanasia, and there seem to be a lot of people who are unwilling to take that extra step, including many in the right-to-die movement. That they are completely wrong about this doesn’t seem to dawn on them. It may be that the preferred way is to provide the means for assisted suicide, so that the person who is suffering is the one who actually has to do the deed, but this excludes, by definition, all those who cannot do the deed, like Tony Nicklinson, and others who have lost the use of their bodies. Many people with MS and ALS end up in this state, and the limitation of assisted dying to assisted suicide means that these people will be forced to make the decision to die earlier than they otherwise might have done, because they would know that, once trapped in their bodies, they are trapped forever, unless they wish to starve themselves to death. But what people who was assistance in dying want is to be in full possession of their faculties when they die, and those who starve themselves to death eventually pass into a comatose state, and then they die. Why they cannot be helped simply makes no sense. It is significant that those who have fought this in court are those who are or who were likely to be in a state where assisted suicide would have been of no use to them. Tony Nicklinson, Diane Purdy, and Diane Pretty: all except Ms. Purdy were unable, at the time of their court challenges, were unable to die by receiving assistance in suicide. And still, unfortunately, the right-to-die organisation in Britain, Dignity in Dying, has not got the point.

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What a horrible, nasty little man Richard Carvath must be to say Tony Nicklinson is selfish, cowardly and dishonourable

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Richard Carvath is a horrible, nasty little man. Here’s how he describes Tony Nicklinson in a post that he misleadingly calls “For the love of Tony Nicklinson“:

Tony certainly isn’t a  human rights hero or a positive role model for the severely disabled either.  Tony is selfish: he is concerned for no one other than himself.  Tony is cowardly: he lacks the courage to live with dignity.  Tony is dishonourable: he seeks murder and despises his own life.  Make no mistake: however much Tony is being manipulated by the media, the pro-euthanasia lobby and even his own family, Tony is guilty of pursuing the legalisation of murder, which, if he ever achieves his aim, would inevitably lead to the murder by doctors of hundreds of vulnerable disabled, incapacitated or elderly patients in an NHS holocaust of involuntary euthanasia.

None of this — not one word of this — is true, and Richard Carvath is a horrible, nasty little man to say it. To start at the end, there is absolutely no evidence that assisted dying will lead inevitably “to murder by doctors of hundres of vulnerable disabled, incapacitated or elderly patients in a NHS [National Health Service] holocaust of involuntary euthanasia.” There is no evidence for this at all, unless, like Carvath, you take it that helping someone to die who wants to die is to murder him or her. But this is simply Christian propaganda of the worst sort. Carvath should be ashamed of himself to say deliver himself of this sort of emotionally uncontrolled nonsense. Again, there is no evidence for this claim at all.

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The insidious reach of Roman Catholic Church and the inhumanity, cruelty and intransigence of its ethical dogma

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Update: Saturday, 11 August 2012. I was unhappy with the title of this post, so I have renamed it, though it still does not capture the heart of my concerns. It is hard to find a title that sums up what I want to say. I do think that Roman Catholic ethical priorities tend in practice towards barbaric immorality, in respect of its completely unacceptable intrusion into the lives of women with respect to their reproductive freedom, as well as in its truly vile belief that people must suffer whatever pains may come from their disease when they are dying, or living with completely debilitating degenerative conditions (very often neurological). The Roman Catholic Church’s ability to reach into society with its numerous associations and alliances has made Roman Catholic intrusion into public morality more insidious than that of other religious groups. The power and wealth of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as its international network of diplomatic representatives makes this church a great threat to human freedom, and it is in the interests of exploring this that this post was originally written, although unhelpfully titled.

I know that many Roman Catholics do not share the moral priorities of their church, and I do not want to suggest that Roman Catholics, as individuals, are less moral or humane than others, but the institutional Roman Catholic Church and its tentacles in practically every aspect of public life is a great danger to freedom and must, in my view, be recognised as such. A good sign that many Roman Catholics are unhappy with the hard line being taken by the Vatican is indicated by the fact that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious — a group representing 80% of the nuns in the United States, according to a National Post report – may claim independence from the Vatican for its association. Expressing their concern at the Vatican’s doctrinal assessment of women religious in the United States, Sister Pat Farrell is reported to have said the following in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter:

“We have never considered ourselves in any way unfaithful to the Church, but if questioning is interpreted as defiance, that puts us in a very difficult position,” Sister Pat Farrell said in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter on Monday. “Together with people around the country who have been supportive of us, our desire is to do what we can, for their sake and for ours, to help create a safe and respectful environment, where together with church leaders we can raise questions openly and search for truth freely, addressing some of the complex issues of our times.” As a caveat, Sister Farrell added that such questioning “can only take place in a climate of mutual trust.”

It is important to note that not all Catholics are prepared, supinely, to accept Vatican dictates without question. This desire for a more open, respectful environment is clearly shared by many Catholics, and is to be encouraged and applauded.

UPDATE — Email just in from Richard N. Côté, author of In Search of Gentle Death, whose interview with Bill Thompson, of the CharlestonPost Courier, was the basis for the article “Are our lives our own? ” highlighted in a recent post here at choiceindying.com: “Charleston “Post and Courier” publishes remarkably insightful, sane and thoughtful piece on “elective death”.” I thank Mr. Côté for his kindness, and add his comment on my post here, because it is so apt to the subject of this post (I have italicised and bolded the last sentence, which is precisely what I am saying about the barbarity of the Roman Catholic Church, for it does, indeed preach the forced suffering of people as they die):

Thank you for the fine analysis of Bill Thompson’s article, which was based on my recent book, In Search of Gentle Death: The Fight for Your Right to Die With Dignity ( www.corinthianbooks.com). Gentle elective death — and how to achieve it — was the subject of my five-year study, which resulted in a book with two conjoined conclusions. The first is that only the rational adult person suffering intolerable, uncontrollable pain, or who is or soon will be incurably or terminally ill has the right to make the choice of when, where, and how to die. The second is that no other person, state, or religion has a right to forbid it.  To force another to live in agony against his or her will is an obscene act; to have it preached by an organized religion is equally vile.

You can order In Search of Gentle Death here – or by clicking on the Corinthian Books address in the quote above.

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I am going to continue to press this issue — what I consider to be the barbaric immorality of the Roman Catholic Church — because new links to Roman Catholic associations continue to be brought to my attention. I have mentioned before my concern that the Roman Catholic Church is a hydra-headed association of associations, think tanks, policy centres, lobbyist groups, political action groups, etc., many of which are not recognised for what they are: Roman Catholic propaganda organisations. Just this week my daughter, who is presently writing her doctoral dissertation on an issue in bioethics, reported that she had received an email invitation to attend a bioethics conference sponsored by the Centre for Clinical Ethics. Having a professional interest in bioethics she investigated further to see if this conference was one that would be worthwhile attending, only to find that the Centre for Clinical Ethics, despite its innocuous sounding name, is really just an arm of the Roman Catholic Church. On its home page it describes itself and its origins as follows:

In  1982 the Sisters of St. Joseph established a Clinical Ethics Service  which is jointly sponsored by Providence Healthcare, St. Joseph’s  Health Centre and St. Michael’s Hospital, three Catholic institutions  which serve the Toronto area. The first ethics service of its kind in  Canada, this service has grown over the years and today is known as the Centre for Clinical Ethics.

The mission of the Centre for Clinical Ethics is to enable members of  the health care community to identify and resolve ethical issues which  arise in the clinical setting. We do this through education, case  consultations, policy development, and research. As a faith based Centre we are committed to the core values of our three supporting  institutions and to broadening the understanding of the role that faith  plays in the questions which confront people in their search for healing.

Instead of saying that they are bound by Vatican directives concerning bioethics, the Centre for Clinical Ethics misleadingly says that they “are committed to the core values of our three supporting institutions,” all of which, are, of course, Roman Catholic institutions, and accept the dictates of the Vatican, which is represented in Canada and many other nations by a diplomatic representative called a papal nuncio, and thus has direct links to government ministers and departments.

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