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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (12300)	4/24/2001 4:08:04 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 82486

We make distinctions all the time. I had a gym coach refuse to let me go to the nurse with a possible sprain because he thought I was complaining too much, and he wanted to make a man out of me. He was a jerk, it was wrong, but it was not abhorrent.

To: Lane3 who wrote (12300)	4/24/2001 4:50:20 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Again, you're assuming the facts will show a) that MT had available pain medication, b) that the patient wanted it, c) she withheld it purely because of her own belief that suffering was good for the patient, d) that the patient didn't know when h/she came for treatment that the pain medication would be withheld, and e) that the patient had no reasonable option to go somewhere else to get pain medication. Even then, though, I could make a case -- one I wouldn't personally choose, but a case -- for withholding. If it truly were against MT's religious belief to give pain medication, would you force her to desert her faith for the comfort of a patient? Of course, maybe she should have chosen some other way to minister, but then maybe there would not only have been no pain medication, but not comfort at all for the patient. Having written that, I decided to look a bit further. And I found: What is interesting is the distortion that at least one atheist/agnostic site used in discussion Catholic health care. For a specific example, in a section criticizing Mother Teresa(1) the author quoted only part of one of the guidelines of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. The author quoted ONLY the following section: "...Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering." Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? But noticing those little elipses, I decided to to find the actual teaching. And when I found it, I found that the omissions were telling. The entire directive, #61, which is under "Issues in Care for the Dying" and therefore doesn't apply to people who are healing and expected to recover, reads as follows: "Patients should be kept as free of pain as possible so that they may die comfortably and with dignity, and in the place where they wish to die. Since a person has the right to prepare for his or her death while fully conscious, he or she should not be deprived of consciousness without a compelling reason. Medicines capable of alleviating or suppressing pain may be given to a dying person, even if this therapy may indirectly shorten the person's life so long as the intent is not to hasten death. Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering." usc.edu Reads quite differently. Keep patients as free of pain as possible. Give medication to relieve pain even if it may hasten a person's death. Hardly a prescription for encouraging suffering. Now, one might take issue with the consciousness doctrine. Maybe MT was refusing to give enough pain meds to make people unconscious. I don't know. But there is no suggestion that suffering should be forced on someone unnecessarily. Only that if their pain can't be alleviated should they be helped to understand that there may be a spiritual aspect to enduriing suffering. If MT was following this doctrine, I can hardly fault her or accuse her of cruelty. Again, I don't know the facts about what MT did. None of us do yet. But I am not ready to condemn without the whole picture, and since MT is dead and can't defend herself in person, integrity of discourse demands that we try our best to understand what she would say before condemning her. And at least in this case it looks to me as though at least one member of the atheist/agnostic community was not giving the whole picture, but was distorting facts to defend a belief position which is at least as dogmatic as that of the Catholic Church. (1) atheism.about.com (P.S. Look at the photo of the author on that site. More them a bit smirky, I would say. Not the face of someone who exudes caring and compassion.)