Introduction
Before I delve into the details of my proposal, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Grace and as a twenty-something black female, I am excited to bring some youth and diversity to this ethics committee. I identify as Episcopalian but I do not consider myself to be a religious person. I attended a single-sex, catholic high school where I was taught Catholic moral law. I continued my education at a private, liberal arts university where I studied anthropology – a discipline that involves examining perceived differences in human experiences. Professionally, I have worked and volunteered in both clinical settings and for public health, nonprofit organizations. In addition, I have significant experience working in women’s health. With this background, I feel especially prepared to discuss assisted reproductive technology and its relationship to religion in the context of this hospital.
Assisted Reproductive Technologies
Although this hospital is no longer run by Catholic auspices, it continues to limit itself to what is deemed acceptable by Catholic morality. Day by day, our patient population becomes increasingly more diverse and I believe that it is time to embrace this diversity. This is the only major hospital within a forty-five-minute radius and therefore, we are responsible for providing medical services to a large yet religiously and racially diverse population. These people “embody and experience religions to varying effects” and for that reason, it would be wrong to strictly enforce a single, strict religious (Catholic) perspective in terms of medical treatment (Hamdy 156).
In the past, this hospital has used Catholic scripture, such as the book of Genesis, and the guidance provided by Donum Vitae to prohibit procedures like abortion and amniocentesis as well as various other assisted reproductive technologies like IVF treatments and prenatal testing. Today, this hospital is a non-denominational, private institution. In order to carry out this status, we are required to acknowledge the moral law of other faiths and reflect these perspectives in our medical practices. In order words, this hospital can no longer only select the Catholic interpretation of morality and force it upon everyone.
We must give patients the opportunity to undergo assisted reproductive procedures if they so desire because ultimately, “everyday life experience in communities and networks – no matter how influenced we are by global forces of communication, commerce, and the flow of people – centers on what is locally at stake” (Kleinman 70). By evaluating the needs of our community and providing patients with the option to pursue various medical treatments, including those that Catholicism denounces, this hospital will become a pillar of advanced and excellent care.
Spiritual Counseling
For some, faith is an essential component to the healing process and as a result, they choose to seek religious guidance while undergoing medical treatment. Because of this, spiritual counseling must remain an available option to all of our patients. In the past, we have had Catholic clergy provide such services but going forward, this counseling must be expanded to clergy of other prominent religions. With this, patients can find comfort in their own faith by discussing their treatment with a religious leader of their choosing.
I anticipate that a number of our healthcare providers will take issue with this option as patients may choose against abortion, prenatal testing and other forms of intervention due to religious sentiments. In this case, it will become important for our staff to relinquish the “powerful myth that religion always opposes scientific and technological progress” (Hamdy 144). The job of a medical provider is to present their patients with all of the options medicine has to offer. It is then up to the patient, and the patient alone, to decide what is best for them. If a patient wants to turn to religion, potentially against medical interference, this is up to them. When it comes to pregnancy and the use reproductive technology, a patient’s “cost-benefit calculations about medical intervention” becomes increasingly weighty as it also involves an unborn child (Hamdy 144). Ultimately, I would remind frustrated providers that religious sentiments “should not be seen as passive, as anti-science, or as constraints to medical treatment” (Hamdy 156). Instead, it is our duty to provide patients with every resource that could assist them in their decision-making process.
Hospital Budget
With our previous budget, the hospital was being able to subsidize medical care for our under-insured patients. This act of good will has allowed thousands of patients to receive first-class care without having to endure tremendous financial burdens. My future goal would be to resume this practice but with the introduction of expensive reproductive technology, this will no longer be possible. At its core, this hospital is a private business and therefore it should be run like one.
There is a possibility that historically Catholic hospital donors will not support our new mission and refuse to continue funding our hospital. In event of this occurring, we will seek funding from organizations who support and encourage the use and development of reproductive technologies. With IVF treatments now being offered, some families will authorize the use of their unused embryos to be donated for life-saving reproductive research. This potential for research opportunities will attract innovation-driven physicians, as well as research grants, to our hospital. With this, we can grow our research teams and improve facilities, hopefully making great contributions to this area of medical research in the near future.
There is a second financial challenge to overcome if we change our policies. Members of our clinical staff who do not support the use of assisted reproductive technology may be disinclined to perform related procedures. Our goal should be to provide education and scheduling options for these staff members, but in the case this does not work, these members will be retrained in new specialties or, in rare cases, let go. If necessary, the money recovered from no longer subsidizing under-insured care will be redistributed to our hiring budget.
Conclusion
This ethics committee is tasked with determining if, and how, Catholic morality should influence the practices of this hospital. In the words of Arthur Kleinman, we must reconcile the “clearly immense differences in the social and personal realities of moral life with the need to apply a universal standard to those fragments of experience” (70). After examining this hospital’s location, patient population, previous religious affiliation, and ability to access medical technologies, I strongly believe that our hospital should no longer allow Catholic moral teaching to control the types of procedures we offer. I propose that we begin offering all available assisted reproductive technologies, such as abortion services, IVF treatments, and prenatal testing, to our prospective patients.
Works Cited
- Arthur Kleinman, “Moral Experience and Ethical Reflection: Can Ethnography reconcile them? A quandary for the new Bioethics.” Daedalus 128 (1999): 69-97.
- Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-2. New International Version. Biblica, 2011. com.
- 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).
- Sherine F. Hamdy, “Does Submission to God’s Will Prevent Biotechnological Intervention?” In Jeremy Stolow editor, Deus In Machina: Religion, Technology and the Things In-between (Fordham University Press, 2013), 143-57.
I will comment on this-GC
I will comment on this. -SK
Grace,
I enjoyed reading your entire midterm. It was very engaging, straightforward, and easy to follow. I am confused why you use twenty-something as opposed to your actual age in the beginning. While this does not necessarily have any negative implications, I don’t think there should be any points that distract the reader from the content of your proposal. I appreciate that you add your personal background, it not only helps evoke awareness to the origin of your perspectives and ideas, but it also creates a more personalized feel throughout the entirety of your proposal.
In your first answer, I am confused about the point you make regarding limitation in terms of Catholic morality. While I think I understand what you are trying to say, without context it can be confusing. If you clarify why those limits exist(i.e the prevalence of Catholicism), it could make this point stronger. I agree with both of the following statements you make, and they are clearly expand. However, there is not a strong transition from the limitations by the Catholic religion to the following points. I think if you can find a way to tie them together and expand on the importance of navigating away from that denomination it will enhance your answer as a whole. It will also make it an easier read. Your paragraph on counseling has valid text-based evidence also and keeps a focused, patient-oriented theme throughout.
The section about budget is well done. I like the point you emphasize about how a hospital at its core is a business and needs to run like one. To further support this stance, it could be helpful if you add some potential implications or consequences of a hospital’s running as a business. It is always enticing when you feel that the proposal understands the other side, even if it doesn’t agree with it. Furthermore, if some consequences do occur, it is important your proposal addresses them and elicits confidence in the audience that they will be handled effectively. One aspect I found missing in your support is what happens if nurses refuse to do procedures against their religion. How will this be taken care of?
Overall, your proposal is strong, engaging, and persuasive. Thank you for your work.
Hi Grace and Shaun,
These are both very well done short essays. Clearly written and argued without too many grammatical problems (I have called attention to a few below). Grace, I appreciated your willingness to just bite the bullet and announce that this is no longer a Catholic hospital, period, without trying to please everyone. However, this essay would still benefit from some more explanation of the reasons behind your assertions (for example, why is it the hospital’s duty to serve everyone according to their own scruples and provide any service that someone wants?). I think you can do more to predict and answer the arguments that will be raised against you, and I also think you can use the readings more to buttress your arguments.
That is, use them not just to illustrate your points about different religions but to consider different moral arguments or frameworks that they raise. You do this in the case of Hamdy to be sure, but there you seem to be using Hamdy to beat Catholics over the head: why can’t you have a technology affirming position like Hamdy does! But Hamdy is really just trying to oppose the secular stereotype of religion as inherently anti-modernist or technologically skeptical. She is not really making an argument about whether religious traditions or religious people ought to be open to any particular technology, right? So I think you might want to revisit that rhetoric.
1. Although this hospital is no longer run by Catholic auspices, it continues to limit itself to what is deemed acceptable by Catholic morality. Should be “operates under Catholic auspices” (auspices can’t run anything) and “deemed acceptable to mainstream Catholics” (morality cannot deem anything, people can).
2. In order to carry out this status, we are required to acknowledge the moral law of other faiths and reflect these perspectives in our medical practices.- Two things. You do not “Carry out” a status, so this needs to be reworded. Also, why do you think this status requires a hospital to “acknowledge the moral law of other faiths”? This is an important part of your argument and it needs to be spelled out.
all the best ,
DS
Hi Grace,
I really enjoyed reading your proposal. It was very engaging and I appreciate your overall writing style–it is very clear and concise.
In regards to your introduction, I like that you were very clear about your identity. It definitely allowed me, as a reader, to have some context of your background—so I was able to see why you proposed various policies that you did. Shauna already touched upon the ambiguity of your age, but if you do not want to provide your exact age, a better way to phrase it would be, “My name is Grace and as a black female in her twenties,…”. Your identity is already very fleshed out, but it might be of some benefit to mention what you took away from your working and volunteering experiences. For example, you could say “I have worked at X hospital where I worked with teenage females wanting abortions and witnessed firsthand x,y,z”, or something along those lines. While I can infer your reasoning for your proposed hospital policies based off your presented identity, it could be beneficial to be more explicit as to how exactly your background makes you a) qualified to speak on certain matters and b) brings you to propose with certain policies to someone who is not in the class.
In your Assisted Reproduction Technologies portion, it might be good to be explicit on your position regarding abortion. I actually had to reread your proposal in order to check on whether you touched upon abortion or not. I appreciate that you are explicit in your deviation from Catholic thinking, as it makes your position very clear in where you stand in regards to the Catholic Church. One thing that you might want to rethink is how the hospital responds to other religions and cultures that might be against IVF treatments or abortion. I am responding directly to the sentence “we are required to acknowledge the moral law of other faiths and reflect these perspectives in our medical practices” when making this suggestion.
For your Spiritual Counseling section, one scenario that you might want to consider is, what if the patient refuses treatment that could be life saving to either her or the fetus based on religious grounds? What if the medical provider cannot provide the “patients with all of the options medicine has to offer” because the patient is refusing to participate in medical tests that allows medical providers a better understanding of a particular situation? If the doctors are dealing with a noncompliant patient, then their abilities to “provide patients with every resource that could assist them in their decision-making process” is limited.
For your Hospital Budget Portion, I really like that you were explicit in stating the fundamental idea of the hospital as a private business. One thing that you might need to anticipate is the potential ethics involved in having a for profit hospital. Also, your proposal could benefit if you offered the committee a way in how the hospital will seek funding from organizations who support the hospital’s new policies. Will the hospital directly reach out to organizations for funding? How will the hospital find these organizations? You mention the potential profit from research, which is great, but what about currently? How will the hospital fund itself now if the donors decide not to support the new mission? Also, it might be good if you establish if your hospital already has a research sector or not. It’s a bit ambiguous and if the hospital does not have a research sector, keep in mind that the hospital would need money to start a research facility.
I think you did a great job explaining how the hospital not subsidizing costs will allow for more money in the hospital’s hiring budget, but you might need to consider the scenario of all Catholic nurses deciding not to perform procedures. What will the hospital do then? The hospital would not be able to provide services that your proposal is stating it should provide—what do you propose in this case?
Overall, I really enjoyed reading you midterm. You are a great writer, so I do not really have any grammatical suggestions. Let me know if you have any questions regarding my comments. Great job again!