Newspaper Page Text
The Southern
DIOCESE OF SAVANNAH NEWSPAPER
Vol. 54 No. 27
Thursday, August 2,1973
Single Copy Price —12 Cents
TO SET ETHICAL GUIDELINES
Proposed National Commission
Would Have Sweeping Powers
TOYS, TOYS, TOYS - Members of the Deodato
Community of Augusta sort toys which are
earmarked for the less fortunate children of the
Augusta community. The toys were given by children
who attended bible schools in the Augusta area. It was
the children’s way of “sharing” with others. The
Deodato Community is a group of young people who
are spending the summer months learning about
community life and service. The work of this group is
detailed on page 2. (Photo by Howell Joyner)
-“A description of any attendant
discomforts and risks reasonably to be
expected.
--“A fair explanation of the likely
results should the experiment fail.
--“A description of any benefits
reasonably to be expected.
--“A disclosure of any appropriate
alternative procedures that might be
advantageous for the subject.
--“An offer to answer any inquiries
concerning the procedures.”
-“An instruction that the subject is
free to either decline entrance into a
project or to withdraw his consent and
to discontinue participation in the
project or activity at any time without
prejudicing his future care.”
The interim provisions also set the
conditions: under which any part of all
of the consent procedures may be
waived. Except in a life-and-death
emergency, two physicians not involved
in the experiment must concur in the
decision to waive those parts of
informed consent that may be justified
by the circumstances.
Besides protecting patients’ rights,
the bill would protect the conscience of
individuals and institutions involved in
HEW-sponsored research or health care.
The “conscience” provision prohibits
discrimination against any individual
who participates or refuses to
participate in any HEW-funded
program.
It says that no individual can be
forced to participate in a
HEW-sponsored program if
“performance or assistance would be
contrary to his religious belief or moral
convictions.”
Likewise, no institution can be forced
to make its facilities available for the
performance of HEW-sponsored
research or health care “if such
performance is prohibited by the entity
on the basis of religious beliefs or moral
convictions.”
If the bill becomes law, the interim
provisions would take effect
immediately and would remain in force
until new guidelines are established by
the proposed national commission.
The bill, which would authorize over
$200 million for biomedical and
behavorial research for the current fiscal
year, has been approved by the Senate
Committee on Labor and Public
Welfare. It is expected to come to vote
on the Senate floor after the August
recess of Congress.
WASHINGTON (NC) - A proposed
national commission would have
sweeping powers to set ethical
guidelines for biomedical and
behaviorial research on human beings
and-maximum feasible extent’’-for
everyday health care.
To cover the period until the
commission-which was proposed in a
Senate version of a House bill—is able to
draw up its own guidelines, the bill
proposes a set of “interim provisions
which would protect the rights of
patients and experimental subjects.
The interim guidelines focus
especially on the right of the subject to
give fully informed consent and to be
protected from experimentation (or
health care) in which the risks outweigh
the potential benefits to be gained by
the procedure.
The guidelines would also prohibit
discrimination against any person or
institution that refuses to participate in
an experiment because of moral or
religious objections.
Under the provisions of the Senate
bill the proposed national commission
would certify Institutional Review
Boards to be established by every
institution that receives HEW funds.
These boards would be responsible for
overseeing experimental projects and
making sure that they follow national
guidelines.
But until the review boards are
established and certified, the bill
provides that “each institution engaged
in biomedical and behavioral research
involving human subjects, shall
determine that the rights and welfare of
the subjects involved are fully
protected, that the risks to an individual
are outweighed by the potential benefits
to him or by the importance of the
knowledge to be gained and that
informed consent is to be obtained by
methods that are adequate.”
The guidelines for “informed
consent” include an insistence that the
person or his legal representative must
be free to make a choice “without the
intervention of any element of force,
fraud, deceit, duress, or other form of
constraint or coercion.”
Several “basic elements” must be
included in a written consent agreement
to be signed by the person or his legal
representative:
-“A fair explanation of the
procedures to be followed, including an
identification of any which are
experimental.
AIKEN, S.C. (NC) - A disclosure that 18 of 50 Medicaid patients who had babies in
the county hospital here were sterilized has prompted an investigation of the three
obstetricians who started the policy. One of the first to object strenously to the
practice was Bishop Ernest L. Unterkoefler of Charleston, S.C. who stated that direct
sterilization is always morally objectionable. “It is alarming to learn that men who
have been given the privileges of practicing medicine should attempt to contravene
norms of morality,” the bishop declared in a written statement.
Divided on Peronism
BUENOS AIRES (NC) - The return of former dictator Juan Peron finds the
Catholic Church in Argentina divided along the same ideological and political lines of
the rest of Argentinian society. Peron’s comeback was greeted by the Catholic
hierarchy with a cautious message pointing out the similarities between Church
positions and some parts of Peron’s return speech. The bishops fell short of actually
endorsing Peron’s leadership, and observers here say that the Argentinian Bishops’
Conference is taking a wait-and-see attitude.
Impeachment Resolution
WASHINGTON (NC) - A priest-Congressman who has been a frequent critic of the
Nixon administration introduced a resolution to impeach the President, July 31. In
introducing the resolution, Rep. Robert F. Drinan (D., Mass.) said “the time has
arrived when the members of the House must seek to think the unthinkable.” Father
Drinan has frequently fought the Administration over its war policies and its cutbacks
in social programs. He said that members of the House must “search diligently into our
convictions and our conscience as to what is our duty under the Constitution as we
behold the unorecendented revelations which every day become more incredible.”
frmini
HEADLINE
HOPSCOTCH
Aiken Sterilizations Denounced
BISHOP EDWARD D. HEAD OF BUFFALO, who some was posted at the recent Clergy Open het^ af the,
assumed his post earlier this year, laughs at the sign Wanakah Country Club. (NC Photo)
“CATHOLIC DIALOGUE”
Disagree on War and Pacifism
WASHINGTON (NC) - A “Catholic
dialogue” on pacifism ended with two
committees of American Catholics
disagreeing on whether nuclear warfare
can justify a position of pacifism toward
all wars.
The committees were formed by the
Department of Social Development and
World Peace of the U.S. Catholic
Conference (USCC) in response to a
challenge by Maj. Gen. Thomas Lane
(U.S.A. Ret.) who had charged that the
church in the United States is
“departing from its historic teaching on
war to indulge sentiments of pacifism.”
As a result, Gen. Lane was made
chairman of one committee, and
Auxiliary Bishop John J. Dougherty of
Newark, Chairman of the USCC Social
Development and World Peace
Committee, was named to head the
other.
The findings of the two committees
have been published by the USCC in a
booklet entitled: “Just War and
Pacifism.”
Gen. Lane’s committee felt that the
fact that war would “be carried on by
H-bombs in 1973, instead of spears and
arrows, did not affect the ethics of the
question.”
The determining factor, the Lane
committee said, is the use to which the
weapon is put: “It is not the size of the
nuclear blast but the use to which it is
put which determines the morality of its
employment.”
To dispute this outlook, Bishop
Dougherty’s committee cited the
Second Vatican Council’s “Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the
Modern World.” It states that nuclear
weapons “can inflict massive and
indiscriminate destruction, thus going
far beyond the bounds of legitimate
defense.”
One of the requirements for
determining a just war is that the
damage caused by the war must be less
than the evil to be eliminated, the
Dougherty committee noted.
Whether a nuclear war can ever be
justified was at the core of a second,
basic disagreement: whether a person
can be right in opposing all wars.
This question, said Jesuit Father
Joseph T. Durkin, a Lane committee
member, has two parts: whether a
person is correct in holding such a view,
and whether a person “is committing a
moral fault,” in holding it.
Both committees agree that an
individual must follow the dictates of
his conscience.
However, the Lane committee
maintains that an individual who has
reached a position of complete pacifism
has reached an erroneous conclusion,
although it is not “a moral fault.”
Duties to the state should be given
high priority in deciding whether an
individual will participate in a war, both
committees agreed.
The Lane committee’s position was
that “a line of thought about conscience
which leads logically to the
disintegration of the state and therefore
to the destruction of religion is already
erroneous, whatever arguments may be
adduced to support it. It is orily in
consideration of the necessities and
merits of particular judgments for the
whole society that the rights and duties
of the individual can properly be
defined.”
The Dougherty committee placed
more emphasis on an individual’s rights:
“The citizen has a responsibility as a
member of society to contribute to the
common good and, where necessary, the
common defense. We do not think,
however, that this responsibility need
be, or should be, translated into an
absolute right of the state to demand
that citizens bear arms.”
INSIDE STORY
Deodato Group
P* 2
"Know Your Faith”
Pg. 5
Summer Fun
"Cook’s Nook”
Pg. 8
Bishop Raymond Lessard
On Confession Before Communion
:• Bishop Raymond W. Lessard of Savannah has announced in a letter to the
:• priests of the diocese that implementation of the declaration ending the |:j;
■: experiment of delaying first Confession until one to three years after the
:• reception of first Communion should be delayed until workable solutions can be
■j found for problems that will result from the change.
■: “Any precipitous change,” Bishop Lessard said, “would risk thwarting the $;
:• underlying intent of the declaration as well as losing the good effects of our •£
present practice.” %
ij |
I; He also noted that many diocesan officials were on vacation and would not be &:
•: present to aid in formulating plans for the change. $;