Galvez Midterm

Ibel Galvez Midterm

Dear esteemed Members of the Sasquatch Committee on Ethics,

I am honored to speak to you today regarding some propositions and urgencies concerning some very controversial legislation placed here before us today. We are tasked with the decision to vote on the use of certain new reproductive technologies and tests. As ethics committee members, it is our responsibility and sole duty to protect our close-knit small town values and represent the people of our great town of Sasquatch, Connecticut.

Before I address the very specific and nuanced technologies to which I refer, I want to remind you all that we must protect the dignity of procreation and human life by leaving them in God’s hands as much as we can. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the clinical setting of a hospital that we end up forgetting what we are truly considering here at Sasquatch Mercy Hospital: life and death. Real people, real bodies and real lives are affected by technological reproductive interventions. We must consider that any “intervention of the human body affects not only the tissues, the organs and their functions, but also involves the person himself…”(144, Donum Vitae).

Here in my proposal I stay true to the values and truths presented in the holy Catholic church’s decree: Donum Vitae. This precious document humbles us and reminds us that we walk the fine line of “going beyond the limits of reasonable dominion over nature” (Gen 1:28 as cited in Donum Vitae 141) when we tamper with the natural world by using too many technological interventions in a beautiful, natural, God-given miracle like reproduction. If we begin to make excessive exceptions for the use of these technologies, then we have ignored God’s decree of trusting in Him and His will.

For reasons unbeknownst to me, Sasquatch Mercy has recently dropped its affiliation with the Sasquatch Catholic church. Surely, our community is ever changing, and we have new members of different faiths, but we are all a God fearin’ folk here in Sasquatch. Whether we are Jewish, Christian, or Islamic, we all uphold conservative values that place God and His will as first and foremost in our minds and hearts. To best serve the people we represent, we- as members of the Committee on Ethics- must consider the core values these faiths have in common when it comes to the question of reproductive technologies. However, because our hospital has historically served members of the Catholic Church and receives generous donations from the Church and its members, we must place those values as first and foremost. As you all know, Sasquatch Mercy is in no position to turn away or discourage any financial support. We need all the help we can get if the hospital is to continue providing free care for the under-insured residents of our town.

Let’s take a moment to review each of the reproductive technologies that we are currently considering in an effort to regard each intervention as we rightfully should.

In the case of providing abortion services for underinsured patients, the hospital should not provide these services, save for the case in which both the baby and mother’s lives are threatened by the pregnancy, i.e. in the case of ectopic pregnancy. Here, both the mother and her baby are at risk and would not survive such this specific unsafe gestational circumstance. All other cases should not be subsidized by Sasquatch Mercy Hospital. In subsidizing abortions (aside from those that would save both the mother and her child), the hospital would essentially place an unwarranted stamp of approval on abortions. Considering that a majority of the nurses and physicians at Mercy Hospital abide by Catholic morality, they will be relieved to know that abortions will only be performed in those rare, absolutely necessary circumstances. Due to the rarity of those aforementioned pregnancies, those staff who still feel uncomfortable with performing the procedure will be allowed a temporary transfer into a different hospital department, if they happen to be at work on the day of said rare procedure. We shall not allow any other type of abortion procedure on the sole basis that as faithful Catholics we cannot support infringement on the dignity of human reproduction as God has so blessed us with.

The human embryo should be treated with utmost respect, as human beings must be respected from the very first moment in which they exist: from the time at which they are conceived (Donum Vitae 147). Prenatal testing, including amniocentesis will be allowed at Sasquatch Mercy Hospital only in the case that the tests are done without excessive, predetermined knowledge that said test(s) will more than likely harm the human embryo (Donum Vitae 150). Additionally, the tests are not to be conducted for the aim of aborting the embryo if an abnormality is discovered.

The question of whether or not to perform amniocentesis tests has come up, as there is a chance of miscarriage, however, recent technological advancements allow doctors to perform these tests while monitoring the baby in order to ensure a safer procedure. Doctors are no longer blindly poking around in the amniotic fluid without knowing whether they will harm the child. According to Rayna Rapp, in her book Testing Women, Testing The Fetus, when sonograms were finally employed in combination with “experimentally invasive techniques of the womb” they became safer and “miscarriage rates attributable to these procedures dropped dramatically” (Rapp 29). So, with the use of sonograms we may provide amniocentesis tests here at Sasquatch Mercy.

In-vitro fertilization treatments will be allowed only in infertile married couples. Catholic decree, Jewish Halakhic law, and Sharia law allow the usage of IVF with varying particularities, but the consensus is that in a married infertile couple, IVF treatment is permissible (Kahn 2). Sharia law establishes that as long as the procedure does not breach the sanctity of the couple’s marriage (i.e. placing another man’s sperm into the married woman would breach the terms of marriage), IVF is allowed. Shirin Garmaroudi Naef writes, “Fertilizing the ovum of a woman with the sperm of her husband outside of her body and implanting it in the wife’s womb is not forbidden in Islam, and the resulting child is the legal offspring of the married couple” (Naef in Inhorn and Tremayne 166). In Halakhic law the issues with IVF stem from protecting and promoting kinship relations which can be complicated by whether the gestational mother is Jewish or whether donated sperm is from male belonging a particular sect of Judaism (Broyde 316). Thus, in order to appease these three religious modes of thought, IVF therapies will solely be allowed in married couples who require it due to infertility, when the procedure consists of the sperm and ovum combined out of the woman’s body.

In accordance with Catholic morality prenatal testing should be confined to the specific use of preserving, protecting, and anticipating potential treatments and procedures the human embryo may require to aid in after birth. Consequently, Embryo donation should not be allowed at the hospital. The human embryo should be treated with utmost respect, as human beings must be respected from the very first moment in which they exist from the moment of conception (Donum Vitae 147). The embryo is human from the moment of conception because of the simple fact that that embryo will develop into a human, and human alone. Therefore, we consider the embryo as human and deserving of utmost care and protection. The use of embryos for scientific research is not in line with respect towards the human embryo.

Spiritual counseling essential for those dealing with loss, sickness, an emotional distress caused by health issues. Here at Sasquatch Mercy Hospital we take pride in our ability to not only attend to our patient’s physical needs, but also to their emotional and spiritual needs. It is so important for us to keep our faith strong in the midst of life’s trials and tribulations and keep faith in God’s divine will. As a community open to those off all walks of life and faiths, we should open our hearts and provide safe spaces in which patients can get in touch with their own spirituality. We will open our spiritual counseling to members of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faiths so that each person is able to consult God in his or her own way during their time of need. But, each clergy representative of each religious background shall only be called upon by the request of the patient. Otherwise, these clergymen should give the patient, their family, and attending physician family ample space by not intervening in the patient’s chosen medical care. To ensure this, we will place clergy offices in the back office rooms located on the Sasquatch Mercy’s lobby floor.

 

My dear friends; brothers and sisters of the board, please remember that “science without conscience can only lead to man’s ruin” (143, Donum Vitae) and it is up to us, and us alone, to uphold this sacred value. Please vote with God’s divine will in your minds, heart, and spirit.

 

Thank you,

Rev. John Doe

 

 

Sources Consulted

Michael J. Broyde, “Modern Reproductive Technologies and Jewish Law,” In Michael J. Broyde and Michael Ausubel editors, Marriage, Sex and the Family in Judaism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), pp. 295-328.

Donum Vitae In Shanon, Thomas A. and Lisa Sowle Cahill, Religion and Artificial Reproduction: An Inquiry into the Vatican “Instruction on Respect for Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Reproduction.” (Crossroad, 1988).

Susan Martha Kahn, Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel (Duke University Press, 2000)

Shirin Garamoudi Naef, “Gestational Surrogacy in Iran,” In Marcia C. Inhorn and Soraya Tremayne editors, Islam and Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Berghahn Books, 2012).

Rayna Rapp, Testing Women, Testing the Fetus (Routledge, 2000)