Mifepristone Lawsuit Highlights Medicine and Law’s Complex Relationship
By Colten Maertens-Pizzo
In episode 112 of Bioethics on Air, “Chemical Abortion and the Courts,” Joe Zalot interviews Elizabeth Kirk on the complexity of the April 2023 federal court cases dealing with the chemical abortion drug mifepristone. Kirk serves as the director of the Center for Law and the Human Person at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America, and she is an associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a research organization that advises the pro-life movement. As an attorney and scholar, she is highly qualified to explain the complexities of Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, the strikingly convoluted case challenging the legality of mifepristone’s initial approval by the US Food and Drug Administration.
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Justice Must Inform Public Health
By Colten Maertens-Pizzo
On May 3, Archbishop Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, spoke to the 17th World Congress of Public Health on the necessity of justice in public health. The congress is hosted by the World Federation of Public Health Associations every two to three years, this year focusing on the role of interdisciplinarity for health equity. Paglia contributed significantly by calling the congress to recognize that public health cannot achieve equity if it lacks an awareness of the need for justice in public health policy.
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Study Points to Benefits of Anti-Bullying Laws for Marginalized Youth
By David Chen, MD
A recent study indicating a positive relationship between anti-bullying laws and reductions in suicidal tendencies among youth who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or unsure about their sexuality (LGBQ) indicates an opportunity to find common ground and work in solidarity with this community to develop interventions that effectively improve health outcomes while avoiding treatment strategies that many find immoral.
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Lawsuit Fights “‘Woke’ Capitalism” at CVS
In episode 111 of Bioethics on Air, “Fighting for Conscience and Religious Liberty at CVS,” Joe Zalot interviews Jonathon Berry to discuss Strader v. CVS, the case of a nurse practitioner who was fired by CVS for refusing to prescribe abortifacients and contraceptives. Berry is a partner at Boyden Gray and Associates and represents the plaintiff, J. Robyn Strader. As an attorney with a special interest in the labor employment space, Berry is well suited for explaining how the challenges to conscience and religious liberty in this case testify to the looming problem of what Berry calls “‘woke’ capitalism.”
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Medically Assisted Procreation and the “Fourth Technological Reich”
In our days, the problem of infertility has become very significant. There is a great deal of suffering for those who cannot have children, and this should not be ignored. The deep desire to have children and to have human relationships within one’s family, understood as a communion between husband, wife, and children, is inscribed in our being. It seems that technology can offer us a solution to this problem, but beware! Pay attention to the postmodern mentality that is very present in regard to procreation. In some methods of medically assisted reproduction, the most common of which is in vitro fertilization (IVF), the human embryo goes from being recognized as a gift to being treated as a product.
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Christian Realism Explores the Existential Value of Suffering
On April 20, 2023, Pope Francis addressed the annual plenary assembly of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and expanded on the theme “sickness and suffering in the Bible.” Tasked with proper interpretation and defense of Sacred Scripture, the commission writes on the intersection between ancient and modern issues such as the perennial issue of sickness. In his address, Francis astutely recognizes that the commission’s current theme is universal, because “human nature, wounded by sin, carries inscribed within it the reality of limitations, frailty and death.” Importantly, Sacred Scripture provides a deep meaning for sickness and the suffering that accompanies it, which modern ways of thinking sorely lack.
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Activist Research Sensationalizes ACOG’s Support of Pro-Life Legislators
Does the political action committee of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) give a significant portion of its funds to pro-life legislators despite ACOG’s long-standing position in support of abortion provision and access? A study published in April in JAMA Network Open claims that it does. According to the study, titled “Abortion Policy Positions of Federal Legislators Who Received Support from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2012–2022,” almost four in ten legislators who received funds from ACOG during the past decade were “anti-abortion access.” A similar portion of the actual funds dispersed to federal legislators went to such pro-life politicians (approximately $1,270,000).
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Digesting the USCCB’s Doctrinal Note on Gender
In episode 110 of Bioethics on Air, “Digesting the Doctrinal Note on Gender,” NCBC ethicists Ted Furton and John Brehany join Joe Zalot to discuss the effect on Church teaching in Catholic health care from the Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body released by the US Conference of Catholic Bishop’s (USCCB) Committee on Doctrine. Prior to this note, the USCCB focused its responses on the issues of restroom and locker room policies and pronoun usage in Catholic schools. This seems to be the first time, according to Furton and Brehany, that the bishops are directly addressing issues of Catholic health care specifically. Before delving into the nuances of the doctrinal note, however, Furton and Brehany clarify its limits.
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Ethically Choosing a Medicare Advantage Plan
When they reach retirement age, many Catholics are deluged with mail and TV commercials regarding Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) plans. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find any guidance regarding the moral positions of the various private sector Medicare insurance companies. But we Catholics do, as we must, concern ourselves with these corporate moral positions. As we think about the information we need to choose a Medicare Advantage plan, many questions come to mind, including, Is it possible to choose a plan that doesn’t offer any immoral services? What moral principles can people use to help make this decision? There’s bad and good news. Unfortunately, most, if not all, commercially available plans offer immoral procedures, and your premiums will support these indirectly to some extent. However, this represents a very remote level of cooperation with the immoral activities, and Catholics can morally choose the Medicare Advantage plan that best meets their health needs.
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Unmitigated Technological Growth Distorts Experience of Embodiment and Knowledge
On February 20, 2023, Pope Francis gave a speech to the Pontifical Academy for Life encouraging the organization to reflect more deeply on its present theme of the relationship between the person, emerging technologies, and the common good. He describes the present situation as a “delicate frontier” where faith must serve to guide mankind to better understanding. However, faith may—and should, he argues—be supported with interreligious dialogue.
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Scientists Create Mice Using Eggs Generated from Male Stem Cells
Katsuhiko Hayashi of Osaka University and Kyushu University has reported that his research team derived functional mouse egg cells (oocytes) solely from male stem cells. Hayashi first described the scientific work in early March at the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing held at the Francis Crick Institute in London. The next week his research team published the details of the experiment in Nature, complete with images of adult “bi-paternal” mice made from the oocytes. The authors write that the purpose of the experiment was to study infertility caused by chromosomal disorders and that it “opens the possibility of bi-paternal reproduction.”
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Proposed Conscience Regulation Reduces Healing to Treatment
Objections raised by The National Catholic Bioethics Center, the National Association of Catholic Nurses, and the Catholic Medical Association (the authors) to proposed reductions to federal conscience protections for health care workers highlight a conflict over whether an “ethic of treatment” or an “ethic of healing” should direct medicine in the United States. On March 5, 2023, the authors submitted a public comment opposing certain aspects of “Safeguarding the Rights of Conscience as Protected by Federal Statutes,” a proposed change in federal regulation written by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). (See discussion in the Winter 2022 “Washington Insider” column by Arina Grossu.) Although both the authors and HHS have a vested interest in the cultivation and preservation of health, their opposing views on the importance of health care workers’ consciences reveals a fundamental difference in their understanding of what health care is.
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Proposed UDDA Changes Conflate Death with Being “Dead Enough”
In episode 109 of Bioethics on Air, “Redefining Death by Revising the UDDA,” Joe Zalot interviews Christopher DeCock, MD, about how proposed changes to the Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) shift the focus from obtaining prudential certitude that someone is dead to establishing that he or she is “dead enough” to remove life-sustaining treatment. DeCock works as a pediatric neurologist in Fargo, North Dakota. As an observer for the Uniform Law Commission—the legal body tasked with proposing changes to the UDDA—he is specially suited to explain the controversy surrounding the proposed changes.
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Solidarity Heals Isolation of Rare Disease
In a February 13, 2023, address to Uniamo, the Italian Federation for Rare Diseases, Pope Francis explained that suffering provides a unique opportunity for unity. His message is especially timely because the world tends to see suffering as something to be avoided at all costs rather than as a possibility for hope. As with many of the Pope’s speeches, he intends to reach beyond his immediate audience and share his message with the wider world.
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Transplant Bill Pressures Prisoners to Act Mercifully out of Self-Interest
Criticized widely as coercive and extreme, a bill introduced in January in the Massachusetts House of Representatives proposed to reduce prisoners’ sentences by between two and twelve months in exchange for their bone marrow or organ donations. Its cosponsor Rep. Judith Garcia (D) offers that the objective of the bill is to allow prisoners to participate in the potentially life-saving work of providing those in need with new organs. Garcia appeals especially to prisoners with family members on the organ transplant list.
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Pope Reflects on Overcoming Disability through Solidarity
On January 21, 2023, Pope Francis spoke to the National Union for Persons Injured in Service. Although the speech was given to a national union that serves members of the military and law enforcement who were injured in the line of duty, the Pope extends his message on the transformative power of suffering to all those with physical disabilities and, even further, to situations of day-to-day conflict. Francis poignantly acknowledges that the path forward after a life-changing injury is not an easy one, describing it as an “overcoming.” Thankfully, this process yields tremendous fruit and offers transformative power for the soul and thereby for the whole person, body and soul. He highlights two points for reflection to underscore his message.
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FDA Prematurely Relabels Plan B
In episodes 106 and 107 of Bioethics on Air, “Changing the Messaging and Mechanisms of Plan B,” Joe Zalot interviews John Brehany, director of institutional relations at The National Catholic Bioethics Center, regarding the revised messaging for Plan B, which was published by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on December 23, 2022 and stated that the medication “will not affect an existing pregnancy.” Brehany explains that this label change may be premature and elaborates on the moral challenge that will result from this revision.
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Misrepresentation Underlies Flawed Ruling against Catholic Hospital
In January a US federal court in Maryland ruled in favor of a woman who identifies as transgender and who felt that her rights had been violated because a Catholic hospital would not perform a hysterectomy—removal of her uterus. But there is much hidden in the judge’s presentation and reasoning in Hammons v. University of Maryland Medical System Corporation. There is plenty of public misrepresentation of the hospital’s mission and contractual obligation to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Services (ERDs) developed by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. There is also some serious misunderstanding of the ERDs themselves.
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Pope’s Message on Leprosy Extends beyond Pathology
In his message to the Second International Symposium on Hansen’s Disease, which was held January 23–24, 2023, Pope Francis reflected on the fact that, despite our claims of being more just than previous societies, we are no better equipped than were they to ensure the fundamental human rights of those who are marginalized. For our all knowledge of disease mechanisms, we still are as likely as were our ancestors to recoil from persons as if they were their disease. This revulsion seeps into other areas of life, pushing people to take drastic steps to avoid crises whose roots can be traced to the stigma created by the selfishness and injustice of others.
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Corporate Decision-Making Strains Hospitals’ Mission
Bringing comfort to the poor and the sick impels doctors and nurses to serve. Unfortunately, hospitals throughout the country are estimated to be closing at a rate of thirty every year. Though the staggering closure rate has slowed in the years following the pandemic because of financial aid from the government, closures are projected to resume increasing after the flow of money dries up. Hospital systems that operate facilities in inner city areas, where a large proportion of the population lives under the poverty line, have especially felt the distressing effects of emergency room closures. Many of the city’s poor rely almost exclusively on these emergency rooms for medical care. Without inner city hospitals, thousands go without critical medical care.
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