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Le blog de la Bergerie                         Sharing the faith . . . in English . . . et en français!    |
Future generations will look back and assess more easily than
ours whether the current economy crises is teaching us a lesson or not. We can't
see the whole forest yet because we are still attempting to count the trees
and we have barely begun to separate the sick ones from the healthy one. This
economy crises is really a moral crises because it is all about honesty, prudence
and self-restraint (or how many of us ignored those standards). Dishonest people
are very difficult to deal with and it does not matter whether they belong to
one party or another, or one nation or another, they always end up being a thorn
in our side! Within the last 20 years, the combination of rising wealth, rapid
technological advances and unrestrained personal greed allowed a financial culture
to look more and more like a global casino. What happened to our conscience (1)
to the daily use of our moral compass? We can only hope
that this crises will work as an enormous "reboot" for all. Our moral ethics
have constantly tried to play catch up with technology. The massive amount of
money that was juggled around the globe daily was made possible because of computers
and the internet. And I wonder how much "control" we will ever have over the
malicious use of these technologies since we can't even control spam and email
viruses. Will we ever be able to monitor all banking transactions and reign
in devious speculators? Only the future will tell.
If it is now obvious to all how something went terribly wrong in our economy
and the consequences it is having on all of us, on our jobs, our houses, our
savings and our 401Ks, there is another critical field where ethics (or the
lack of) could really mess up the whole fabric of our society and affect our
future and that is the field of science and medicine. Bio-ethics is a wide-open
field largely unregulated for now (2) . If modern medicine has achieved some
truly great victories recently, there is also a sinister current growing within
it and it is, just like in the economy crises, fed by personal greed, reckless
desires and warped consciences. Embryos are being used for scientific experiment
like guinea pigs or implanted by the dozen (3); the wombs of third world countries
are being rented by the wealthy women of the West in a new form of exploitation (4)
; bodies in hospitals are being shot with morphine and dissected alive (5)
for body parts; older or frail or sick people are viewed as useless and are
encouraged to "go" and are even assisted in their forced exit (6); attempts
are continuously made at cloning (7) and even at cross-species manipulation.
From eugenics (8) to euthanasia, from abortion at all terms of gestation to
organ trafficking to medical tourism (9) , from fetal farming (10) to human-animal
hybrid work, from assisted suicide to designer babies (11), the temptations
are that much stronger because of the new technological and scientific advances
and because of a precipitous decline in our moral ethics. It is a scary and
confusing picture and various data and statistics are juggled around to keep
us bewildered: "it's for the best; it will help others; it's what you really
want; anyhow it's just the way it goes". We urgently need a common reflection
on bio-ethical guidelines (based on honesty, prudence and the truth!) to form
cautious and rational regulations at the national level and seeking to work
out international consensus for the common good.
The modern notion of "human rights" was born in the West and is derived from
the Judeo-Christian view of the inherent dignity of every life ,
whether it is young or old, strong or weak, healthy or sick; it believes that
we all benefits when we accord basic human rights to every voice, whether it
is an articulate and educated one or a weak and silent one. Much work still
need to be done and the latest fights (and the most exciting!) are for the voices
of the smallest and weakest among us, the unborn (12), the handicapped, the
depressed or the elderly. If you don't see your "neighbor" in the embryo (13)in
the womb, then the abortion issue will remain the main cultural divider. If
you don't think (or do not care) whether anyone has a soul and that the soul
is only separated from the body at death, then there will be continued experiments
on body parts and the utilitarian view of people might prevail. If we don't
learn our lesson now, then we should expect to have to go through another meltdown
very soon, and it will effect not only our wallets but our bodies and our health,
in us or in our loved ones …
No material progress can be lasting if it is not nourished and sustained with
moral principles (14), and in many ways, that is very good news, because it
starts with "me", with my own ability to seek the truth and cling to reason
and equip myself with prudence in every aspect of my life. Rather than waiting
for the whole world to "get it right", I know that it starts with me, living
and doing the righteous thing and I found this very empowering and reassuring.
This part of the message (based on truth and reason and prudence) can be understood
by believers and non-believers alike and can be used as a common bridge. In
my case, I am blessed with an additional dimension anchored in faith in God,
who created me, and in his Son, who redeemed me. It is exactly in the process
of living a moral and just life that I can share my faith with my believing
brothers and sisters and witness to all the others. So in the end, when the
global alarms are popping up all over the landscape, I found it very comforting
to know that this is the best time for me to do the right thing, in my own corner,
with my own little voice, and that today's solution to the current crises or
to the next one can be started and built right here at home, one heart and one
conscience at a time.
Copyright ©04-02-2009 Michele Szekely - San Francisco
FOOTNOTES AND REFERENCES AND LINKS:
(1) Conscience vs the state: In ancient Rome "Christians challenged
the authority of the government by claiming that its influence controlled only
one area of their lives. They paid taxes, fought and died in the military and
supplemented the State's weak provisions for the poor and the ill with their
own charity. But their duty to their God directed by their conscience would
not let them recognize the Emperor as having control over actions that would
affect their immortal souls". See article by Elizabeth Lev here
here on Zenit
(2) Bio-ethics regulations: "The United States is known as
the "Wild West" of assisted reproductive technologies. In this era of globalization,
regulation and oversight of what many call the "baby business" is urgently needed.
See here
. "Legislators should tame the 'Wild West' of assisted reproduction by Marcy
Darnovsky " The sad fact is that the majority of U.S. fertility centers break
the rules of their own profession, with no apparent shame or consequence.".
Read more here
for the progressive voice on bio-ethics.
(3) Embryos: In the multiple ways of assisted reproduction,
"excess" embryos are routinely destroyed or frozen for later use or for research.
If you don't destroy them, here are amazing pictures on what they look like,
a few years later: Newsweek slide show on multiple births
here
(4) Wombs for rent was the title of a series of stunning photos
taken by photographer Stephanie Sinclair on surrogacy in India. Many of them
illustrate the Marie Claire article
here Womb for rent by Kevin Clarke. "Have infertile couples taken a maternity
leave of their senses? "The modern "womb worker": women in the developing world
offering up this most vital resource in exchange for cheap compensation" The
new exploitation of 3rd world resources. Read
here
(5) Brain death and organ donations: A very difficult topic
but we have a responsibility to speak the truth and to know that, under the
"goodness" of organ donations, there is an alarming trend happening and it rejects
the traditional criteria of establishing death and relies exclusively on "brain
death" (which, in itself, is a very controversial criteria) and the consequences
are that hospitals are actually performing live dissection. Read this painful
article of a "bereaved mother"
here. Then read this article on "Woman Diagnosed as "Brain Dead" Walks and
Talks after Awakening"
here
(6) Euthanasia: Forced Exit:
the Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder.
Wesley Smith makes the case against assisted suicide,
challenging "right to die" advocates and urging that "euthanasia is unwise,
unethical, and just plain wrong, a social experiment that if implemented will
lead to cultural and ethical catastrophe."
(7) Cloning: The World Health Organization
issued clear and strong guidelines against cloning because of the physical and
debilitating risks involved in such experiments, "in any other biomedical field,
such as the development of a new pharmaceutical product, no responsible researcher
would contemplate proceeding to a human trial" (which is why such research is
currently done in secrecy). But there are more red flags and WHO presents many:
"Autonomy: if a person’s DNA were used to create one or more copies without
that person’s permission or knowledge; Conflicts of interest; Psychological/social
harm from its status as a "genetic copy”; the Dignity of the person;
turning human beings into manufactured objects; it will "only be available
to a small group of privileged individuals with the financial resources". See
especially § 9,10 and 11 of "A dozen questions (and answers) on human cloning"
here.
(8) Eugenics: any Google search will quickly reveal the disturbing
link between birth control and eugenics and racism in Margaret Sanders, the
founder of Planned Parenthood, who was very explicit in getting "rid of the
unfit" in her Negro Project. See more:
here
(9) Medical Tourism: PlanetHospital is one such site specializing
in medical tourism where the West can shop globally for cheap medical procedure,
where there is very little mention of bio-ethics but where money rules and facilitates
this new form of colonialism. This site specifically advertised sex change or
surrogacy for gay couples and "will assist in the arrangements with the doctors,
the passports, visas, flights, hotels transfers and even put a concierge at
your disposal" See
here
(10) Fetal farming: "Campus newspaper ads offering tens of
thousands of dollars for egg providers are routine. Many observers are concerned
about the commercialization of human reproduction, and worry that these payments
constitute undue inducements to put one's health at risk." Read more
here
(11) Designer babies: Creating the perfect child "the potential
for misuse of this technology could have dire consequences for the human race.
"This runs many risks. It's used in many countries to avoid the birth of female
children. "The technologies are going to be accessible to affluent couples and
would be used in ways that could increase inequality. The last thing we need
now is a genetic elite. "This designing aspect would also lead to an objectification
of children as commodities." Read more
here by Richard Hayes
(12) Human rights: Because we are made "in the image of God"
and because God gave us free will; the combination of these two crucial truths
(human dignity and human freedom) form the underlying platform of human rights.
For a Christian, they are a gift from God but even a non-believer can see the
goodness and prudence in them based on reason and solidarity and can fully espouse
them. This wonderful and fruitful alliance (of faith and reason) gave birth
to our modern notion of human rights. For a fascinating account of such historical,
cultural and theological developments, I highly recommend "L'Europe, ses fondements,
aujourd'hui et demain" by then-Cardinal Ratzinger.
(13) Stem cells: adult stem cell successes and why it gets
downplayed by the Media. "Stunning Discovery Could Mean No Need to Use Embryos
in Research." by WESLEY J. SMITH
here Stem cells: the winners are iPS cells! "two teams of researchers (one
in Wisconsin and one in Japan) announced they had successfully transformed regular
human adult skin cells into what appeared to be the equivalent of embryonic
stem cells without using human embryos. Since then, several crucial advances
have made the technique more efficient, more effective, and safer . These techniques
not only avoid any ethical concern, but they offer a far cheaper and easier
method" Read the article Biotech on the First Things site :
here
(14) The World and Morals: and to finish, here is an interesting
quote on the intricacy of the physical world and the challenges of a moral life:
Einstein said: "Two things inspire me to awe -- the starry heavens above and
the moral universe within."