WRITTEN BY Drs. John Haas, Douglas Farrow, Francois Pouliot, Maria Kraw

PUBLISHED BY Justin Press, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-8028-6416-1, Softcover, pp. 212; PRICE: $17.95CDN

To order, please visit http://www.justinpress.ca or call 1-613-729-2247

            For over forty years the consciences of Catholic physicians, nurses, and medical technicians in Canada, the U.S., and Europe have been under attack by various health care organizations and human rights commissions. The origin of this hostility occurred many years ago. Aristotle and Socrates had written on medical ethics in a profound way in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Judeo-Christian revelation was also fundamental to the development of the conscience of the public in explaining the meaning of life, our identity and destiny with God in this life and in the hereafter. The two towering moral thinkers were St. Augustine in the fifth century and St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth.

            Then, in the eighteenth century, atheism made its first appearance at the French Revolution. In 1869, agnosticism, the denial that one could know that God exists at all, originated in the thought of an English scientist, Thomas Huxley; he was supported by American bourgeois writers, academics and scientists, who referred to themselves as "intellectuals." John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) taught that actions should be morally judged only by their effects. This was the philosophy of utilitarianism. Their effects were to be judged as good or evil if they contributed to the pleasure of the maximum number of people or minimized the pain of the maximum number. This philosophy rapidly spread across the world and is accepted today by most of the organizations involved in politics, law, medicine, science, and technology. It has led to a marked increase in the promotion of contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilization, homosexual and extra-marital sexual activity, and in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDs, research using human embryos, and euthanasia.

Canada

            In order to address this shocking situation, on September 7, 2008, a federation of autonomous Catholic medical guilds was created to promote the teachings of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, to develop a policy in relation to medical ethics and health care, and to support further creation of Catholic Physician's Associations and societies in Canada. To aid in this noble endeavor, Justin Press published A Matter of Conscience.

            There are four chapters, the first by Dr. John M. Haas, PhD., S.T.L. on The Nature of Conscience. Conscience is shaped by reality, the community, and God Himself, and not on Protestant subjectivism. The Church does not simply denounce or refute false ethical theories, but with great love, says the apostle Paul, "Do not be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect" (Romans, 12:2).

            The second chapter is by Dr. Douglas B. Farrow, PhD., Professor of Christian Thought at McGill University. People are beginning to believe that one's right to medical care supercedes a respect for the conscience of the professional from whom the care is expected. The goodness of an act is judged only by whether it has reached the consequences desired of it, the Greater Happiness Principle. This leaves unanswered the question of whether the desired consequences themselves are good or bad. The exaggerated compassion and overemphasis on the relief of suffering by many demands abandonment of others to abortion and euthanasia.

            The third chapter is written by Dr. Franqios Pouliot, O.P. and M.D., Director of Centre des Etudes, Noel-Mailloux, en Ethique et en Psychologie, Quebec. He states that the Code of ethics of physicians of Quebec, (Nov. 7' 2002), holds that a physician must offer to help a patient to find another physician who will provide or prescribe a professional service that he or she cannot provided for personal reasons. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that a citizen is not required in conscience to comply with the prescriptions of authorities if they are contrary to the demands of the moral code, to basic human rights, or the teaching of the gospel. To refuse to cooperate in evil actions is not only a duty, but also a right that must be protected. (John Paul II, Evangelium vitae. No. 73).

            The final chapter is written by Maria Kraw, M.D., FRCP(C) of Toronto. In her chapter, Humanae Vitae at Forty, she gives a clear account of Church teaching on the begetting and education of children, of how and why it was ignored, of the serious consequences of such ignorance, and of how Catholic physicians can be vehicles of healing and of health. Obedience to the Church should have led to serenity and peace.

            Instead, we have a crisis because we are "eating the rotten fruit of disobedience." Schools and seminaries promoted proportionalism that teaches that right and wrong are to be judged by the weight of good effects against bad effects. Another erroneous teaching in the seminaries was the fundamental option that holds that a man's particular activities do not necessarily affect his ultimate salvation and that what is important is his fundamental orientation towards or against God. You could prevent conception if you had a good reason provided the marriage was generally open to conception. Examples of this rotten fruit include ... 60% of Catholics use condoms and 40% use the pill: fifty percent of pregnancies of those who use the pill or the condom are aborted; greater marital infidelity and loss of respect for women; a general lowering of morality; increased rate of separation, abuse, and divorce; a decline in world population. Forty percent of the world's population now have fertility rates too low to prevent population decline. Furthermore, the pill causes an increase in heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots. Abortion increases the rate of breast cancer.

            What can Catholic physicians do about this catastrophe?

1) Reach out in friendship as an educator and an apostolic witness to our colleagues in the workplace;

2) Promote natural family planning, either by the Billings method or the Creighton Model Fertility Care System.

            This book is a "must read" for doctors, priests, and the public at large. With the help of God and much individual family and social effort, one can dominate instinct and achieve self mastery by means of one's reason and free will, drive out selfishness, and attain a sense of responsibility, serenity and peace.

Dr. John B. Shea, MD FRCP(C) of Toronto is a regular contributor to Catholic Insight magazine. His many articles on medical ethics can be found on at least 23 search engines online.