Religion and Medical Ethics

SANCTITY                         vs                         QUALITY
       
         \/                                                                                        \/

HOLY/SEPARATE/SET APART                                VALUE OF LIFE IS TO DO WITH
                                                                               EXTERNAL EXTRINSIC FACTORS
CREATED UNIQUELY BY GOD                                         
                                                                               NOT VALUABLE IN ITSELF
"CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD"                                           

ROMAN CATHOLICS - Life begins at conception                               ABSOLUTE MORALITY
                                  Take life is wrong                                                 
                                  Viewed as sin                                                          PRO-LIFE
                                  'You shall not murder'
                                  Accept Doctrine of double effect

CHURCH OF ENGLAND - Opposes Abortion
                                      Morally acceptable in certain cases
                                      Must be lesser of two evils                       RELATIVE MORALITY

METHODIST - Opposes Abortion                                                          PRO-CHOICE
                      Lesser of two evils (social circumstance included)

SANCTITY OF LIFE - 'I chose you before I gave you life'

PERSONHOOD - what it means to be a human

NO!  - Against Laws in the UK (Allowed in some countries like Netherlands)

FOR - prevent pain                                                   HOSPICES - Christian responce
          don't want to be a burden                                                Offers care and support
          cost to get well                                                              priests and ministers
          rights of the individual
          QOL

AGAINST - open to abuse                              RCC + COE AGAINST
                 pain can be controlled                    - Life is sacred
                 doctors viewed differently               - Doctrine of double effect accepted

                 removes hope                                          
                 SOL                                             IN FAVOUR (Christians)
                                                                     - Loving action
                                                                     - compassion shown by Jesus

TONY NICKLINSON
DR ANNE TURNER
KAYE GILDERDALE

CHRISTIANS SAY NO

- Life is sacred
- God choses when humans are born and when they die
- Suffering can bring you closer to God
- Against 6th commandment
- St Paul "Body is a temple of the holy spirit"
- selfish - causes pain for those left behind

Was a serious crime in the past

Was thought of as a serious sin - no burial on holy ground

SAMARITANS - Christian organisation that helps the suicidal 

GIFT                                                      OR                                                        RIGHT
God decides                                                                                    
Non-religious - natural population control

AGAINST
ROMAN CATHOLIC
- Life begins at conception
- Unnatural
- God's choice
- Introduces thrid party - adultery
- What happens to embryos?
- Hannah in old testement - God "closes her womb"]

FOR
- bring happiness
- God gives skills
- "Be fruitful and increase in number"
- Agape - selfless love (Christian)

ACCEPT - RCC + CofE
- produces life saving drugs (polio, diabetes, heart transplant)
- however cruelty is unacceptable "Scientists must abandon labs and factories of death"

AGAINST
- God made a covenant with humans and animals
- Both created by God
- Animals have souls
STEWARDSHIP (responsible/look after)

THOMAS AQUINAS
- animals don't have a soul
REASONS TO SUPPORT
- humans most important
- we have souls "God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life"
- humans can have relationship with God
- "Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air"
rule - do what you want or protect and look after?

REPRODUCTIVE CLONING - artificially producing a duplicate animal or organism
THERAPEUTIC CLONING - clone to replace body parts or replace diseased cells

AGAINST (RCC)
- wrong to use human being or any part of them
- concequences are unknown - possibility of cancers etc
- human life is sacred
- embryo is a human being - potential
- playing God 
- embryos destroyed

IN FAVOUR
- bring benefits to humans 
- embryo (cluster of shells) does not count as a human