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PAGE 16 - The Georgia Bulletin, August 2, 1990
Jesuit Testifies For Patient Self-Determination
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A Jesuit professor at the
University of Notre Dame testified July 20 in support of
a U.S. Senate bill that would require health care providers
to ask patients whether they wanted to sign a statement
specifying what kind of care they want should they later
become incompetent to make decisions for themselves.
Father Richard A. McCormick, a Christian ethics
teacher at Notre Dame, told a Senate subcommittee that
"there is a basic human right of self-determination with
regard to acceptance or rejection of medical treatment."
Father McCormick said "there is a corresponding
obligation on someone to make the exercise of that right
practically operable."
The Senate bill, called the Patient Self-Determination
Act, is sponsored by Sen. John C. Danforth, R-Mo., and
awaits action by the Medicare and Long Term Care
Subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee.
A similar bill was introduced in the House by Rep.
Sander M. Levin, D-Mich. Hearings were held in May by
the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means
Committee. The House bill also awaits subcommittee
action.
Levin, in July 20 testimony, said the bills would not
supersede state laws on power of attorney or "living
wills." Currently, 41 states and the District of Columbia
permit living wills.
Levin said the bills would prohibit providers from
making a patient’s signing or refusal to sign a statement
a condition of treatment
Interest in the issue has increased since the U.S.
Supreme Court’s decision in the Nancy Beth Cruzan
feeding case.
The court ruled in June that Miss Cruzan’s food and
water, administered through feeding tubes, could not be
withdrawn since she did not state in writing, before the
accident that has left her in a permanent vegetative state,
the desires her parents say she expressed verbally about
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not wanting to be connected to life- sustaining devices.
Most witnesses at the Senate hearing cited the Cruzan
case.
"The vast majority do not know where to turn or what
to do to state their personal preferences," Father
McCormick said.
Self-determination, he said, can be blocked due to the
"increasing depersonalization" of health care once technol
ogy, cost containment pressures, and laws and lawsuits
Catholic Center Study:
play their roles in the process.
The assertion that it is "the duty of the physician to do
everything for that patient until that patient is called to his'
or her reward" masks "a kind of medical idolatry, Father
McCormick said. "When this attitude pervades the hospital
setting, self- determination is crushed."
Such conditions and attitudes "can be traced to lack ot
communication," Father McCormick said.
Scrap Proposed Pastoral On Women's Concerns
BY LAURIE HANSEN
WASHINGTON (CNS) - The Washington-based
Center of Concern has urged the U.S. bishops to scrap
their proposed pastoral letter on women’s concerns, citing
"inconsistencies" in the document’s second draft.
"Do not approve this document even in an amended
form. Do not attempt a pastoral letter on women’s con
cerns at this time," says the center’s 10,000-word report,
which is especially critical of the document’s treatment of
the church’s ban on ordination of women to the priest
hood. The report was issued in June.
The Center of Concern is an independent Catholic study
center created in 1971 as a result of cooperation between
the U.S. bishops and the Society of Jesus.
"Inherent contradictions and inconsistencies permeate"
the second draft of the U.S. bishops’ proposed pastoral
letter, making a good revision impossible, according to the
center’s report.
The fundamental contradiction shaping the document, it
says, is that while the document affirms the equality of
men and women, gender differences are used to justify
differences in church policy toward men and women.
The second draft of the bishops’ proposed pastoral
letter, titled "One in Christ Jesus: A Pastoral Response to
the Concerns of Women for Church and Society," defends
the church’s stand against the ordination of women but
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says this stance and others must not be used to justify
oppressing women.
The 99-page draft encourages women to participate in
all liturgical ministries that do not require ordination. An
amended draft is to be voted on at the bishops’ general
meeting in November.
The Center of Concern report says that while ordination
is "not the primary concern" of the majority of women in
the church, it "remains the key symbolic and structural
barrier to the full realization of women’s equality with
men.”
The report calls the "most encouraging" element of the
draft the bishops’ "public acknowledgement of the validity
of the issues women have been raising."
"The naming of the sin of sexism and recognizing the
church’s implication in its perpetuation is significant," it
says.
The report says the draft rightly denounces "both the
overt and subtle violence against women, which occurs tb
individuals and to women as a group."
The report is critical of the bishops’ document for
utilizing the "traditional romantic ideology of women." „
As an example, it quotes the bishops’ committee as
saying: "When women are fully respected as equals; when,
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, their talents,
dedication, and energy are fully utilized, women will
‘uncover, cherish and ennoble all that is true good and
beautiful in the human community."’
"What does this imply about men?" asks the report.
"Such statements do not hold up before the reality of
human experience. They not only place a false aura and
expectation on women but they also alienate men.”
The report was prepared by Jesuit Father James E. Hug-,
center director, and Dominican Sister Maria Riley, a staff
member at the center.
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