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X. REDEFINING PERSONHOOD & THE
LIMITS OF HUMAN LIFE
What Is a Person? An Ethical Exploration
by James W. Walters
Another book written by a Seventh-day Adventist author is What Is a Person? An Ethical Exploration [1], published in 1997. It reflects the thinking of a highly respected Loma Linda University faculty member, James W. Walters. His expertise is rooted in the realms of theology, philosophy, and ethics. On the front inside cover flap, we find an explanation for the writing of this book:
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When does a person qualify for protected and continuing life? At a time when technology can sustain marginal life, it is ever more important to understand what constitutes a person. What are the medical, ethical, mental, legal, and philosophical criteria that determine protectable human life?
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If the previous publication of another book in 1992, Abortion: Ethical Issues and Options, edited by David Larson, and the adoption of the official “Guidelines on Abortion” in the same year can be considered as having dealt a fatal blow to the growing pro-life movement within Seventh-day Adventism, then the publication of James W. Walters might represent the last nail in the SDA pro-life coffin.
Introduction
Walters started his book with the following question: “Are persons and humans equivalent terms? Are all persons humans? And are all humans persons?” [2] Why did Walters ask these questions? The answer lies in the fact that he doesn’t believe that a conceptus, the size of a pencil dot, can be equated with that of a fully developed individual “who possesses a degree of self-consciousness.” [3] He is convinced that self-consciousness is an indispensable requirement for being considered as a person, for which reason he affirmed the following: “I do not think that a human conceptus qualifies as a person [4] and neither does a human who is irretrievable beyond consciousness—say, a patient in a truly permanent coma.” [5]
To these two examples Walters added the cases of anencephalic infants who are forever beyond any hope of developing neo-cortical functions. Modern medical technology provides the means for sustaining human life under those conditions almost indefinitely. Of course, medical care for these special cases doesn’t come cheap, for which reason society can’t avoid the question: “How do we decide who has a special moral claim to life and scarce medical resources?” Walters’ answer is: “The more nearly an individual human or animal approximates a life of self-consciousness, the greater the claim of that individual to maximal moral status.” [6] Then he added:
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The proximate personhood model contends that the greater the potentiality for and the greater development toward uncontested personhood and the greater the binding of persons to the baby, the greater the newborn’s moral standing. [7]
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Walters concluded his introductory chapter by explaining his special interest in elucidating the case of anencephalic infants: They can be valuable sources for organs donations that could benefit patients who are dying for a lack and scarcity of such organ donors. Walters stated he would like to have the law altered so that this source of human organs might become available to medical experts. [8]
1. Modern Bioethics and Religious Roots
In Chapter 1, “Modern Bioethics and Religious Roots,” [9] Walters discussed the classic case of Nancy Beth Cruzan, who, following a tragic automobile accident back in 1983 became comatose after her survival and was fed by means of artificial nutrition and hydration for eight years. Her parents requested that she be allowed to die, but a trial court ruling authorizing the removal of the feeding tube was overturned by the Missouri Supreme Court. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which determined that Nancy’s wishes should prevail if it could be ascertained that she would not have wanted to live indefinitely under those circumstances. After the legal battle was over, the comatose girl was allowed to die. [10]
Next, Walters documented the fact that religion no longer plays the dominant role it played in ancient societies. “Once theology was the queen of the sciences; now it is lucky to be a servant.” [11] And he reminded his readers that “religion does not possess a definitive answer to the difficult issues raised by bioethics.” [12] He cited the fact that we do not find in the Bible an outright condemnation of the slavery institution, while modern norms prohibit the enslavement of human beings. This means that religious traditions do not provide a sure and clear guide for decisions regarding morality. [13] What was once considered permissible may not be tolerated now by society and vice versa. It also means, by implication, that when the church insists that the embryo “must be treated as a person,” [14] said claim must not be taken at face value without careful consideration.
After introducing the conflicting claims of physicalism and personalism, [15] he ended the first chapter of his book by citing an argument credited to Charles Hartsthorne, who taught both at the University of Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin:
Of course, a fetus is genetically human, but so is “every unfertilized egg in the body of a nun.” Yes, a fetus is alive, but so are bacteria and mosquitoes—and all plants. Realistically, in its first weeks the fetus is not even comparable to an individual animal. It is “an organized society of single-celled individuals” with a particular origin and a “possible or probable destiny.” Fundamental to Harsthorne is the distinction between “possible individual person” and “actual person.” Only actual persons, he repeatedly emphasizes, have the capacity to speak, reason, and judge between right and wrong. [16]
2. Vying Models: Physicalism and Personalism
Walters further developed the moral ramifications of the two models for understanding the moral value of human beings in chapter 2 of his book: “Vying Models: Physicalism and personalism.” [17] He admitted that there exists certain ambiguity in the understanding of those terms, for which reason he explained his own notion of what the term person means for him:
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My own use of the term person should be clearly stated. First, I and many others use the word person as a normative term that denotes an individual who possesses maximal moral status. Second, I join other mainstream personhood thinkers in contending that only individuals who possess certain capacities of the higher brain inherently lay claim to the designation of person . . . The higher-brain capacity that I see as especially crucial is self-consciousness. [18]
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In his description of physicalism, Walters noted that the Catholic Church position is not monolithic, and that personalism had been gaining ground since the Second Vatican Council. One of the leading Catholic ethicists, Cardinal Bernardin, exhibited a “profound respect for human life,” and criticized “pragmatic” medical humanism, as opposed to “personalist humanism”:
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Pragmatic humanism, Bernardin argues, is a secular, purely utilitarian philosophy—the greatest good for society regardless of individual claims of the weak and voiceless. “Implicit in pragmatic humanism is the fact that society may diminish the value and dignity of non-productive persons for the sake of the common welfare . . .” The cardinal lists fetuses, newborn babies, the comatose, and the hopelessly senile as “not enjoying full human dignity” in the eyes of pragmatic humanists. [19]
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In spite of Bernardin’s criticism of pragmatic humanism, which quite often espouses the philosophy that “might makes right,” Walters thought that the cardinal’s ethic exhibited some ambiguity by admitting that “there must be reasonable limits to society’s obligation to prolong life,” [20] that “health care personnel cannot do all things for all persons. They cannot provide all services to all members of the human family,” and that “some individual lives need not be prolonged if such endeavors strain either society’s limited resources or our ‘reasonable limits.’” Given such exceptions, argued Walters, “his appeal for respect for the dignity of every human life from ‘womb to tomb’ is of little help.” [21]
Walters affirmed that “the perspective limiting personhood to self-conscious beings is gaining increased attention and prominence. The essential claim is that only individual with capacities for significant cerebral functioning possess a morally unique claim to existence,” [22] with some ethicists suggesting that those with a minimal 20-40 I.Q. do not possess an intrinsic right to life. This implies, of course, that even newborns are not entitled to personhood, because they to not exhibit self-consciousness, self-awareness, and the capacity for rational thought. It is evident that, carried to its logical conclusion, such an attitude would provide the philosophical basis for infanticide.
Another ethicist who is also a physician, explained Walters, provided an answer to this moral dilemma. Tristram Engelhardt suggested that, although the newborns might not be persons in the strict sense, society treats them as if they did possess personhood. We actually “impute” to them a degree of moral status in spite of their lack of self-consciousness. He also contended that “there should be rules against maiming and injuring but not killing fetuses because of the ‘future person’ the fetus will likely become.” [23] In theory, Engelhardt argued, infanticide would be permissible, but not in actual practice because of the person the neonate will eventually develop into. Walters made the following comments towards the end of this chapter:
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However, personhood affirms that all newborn and all permanent comatose patients are not humans deserving of unique moral respect. … But even if personhood has immediate intuitive appeal to most of us, we do not follow it to its logical conclusions. That is, we do not perform or even allow infanticide merely because the newborn does not possess the higher-brain capacity of self-consciousness. No doubt society behaves thus for many reasons, but at least some of our reasons are basically emotional. Regardless of other considerations we find it revolting to even think of killing a newborn baby whose anatomical features are so like our own and who after normal development will be a person like us in a few short years. [24]
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And he cited towards the end of this chapter a statement by Sidney Callahan: “A good case can be made that what is specifically moral about moral thinking, what gives it its imperative ‘oughtness,’ is personal emotional investment.” [25]
3. Proximate Personhood
In chapter 3, “Proximate Personhood,” [26] Walters expounded the central point of his ethical philosophy dealing with human values. He started with the case of a severely deformed baby whose parents refused to authorize surgery to correct a hernia. The attending physicians thought a court order might have been in order, but experts failed to reach a consensus. Next Walters discussed the case of Baby Jane Doe and cited the former U.S. Surgeon General’s, C. Everett Koop, opinion on this case:
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We’re not just fighting for the baby but for the principle that every life is sacred. . . . each newborn infant, perfect or deformed, is a human being with unique preciousness because he or she was created in the image of God. [27]
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Walters also cited a 1983 statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics expressing the value of human life: “Discrimination of any type against any individual with disability/disabilities, regardless of the nature or severity of the disability, is morally and legally indefensible;” and mentioned the fact that disabled children do not normally exhibit suicidal tendencies.
Then he made reference to the opinion of Paul Ramsey who described how the Nazi genocide did not start full blown, but rather with small beginnings when Hitler’s policy began to implement the notion that the life of certain individuals was not worthy to be lived. Nevertheless, Walters mentioned the fact that even Koop opined that society had no moral obligation to indefinitely sustain the life of a baby born with no intestine by means of artificial feeding. [28] Regarding the newborn’s claim to life, Walters quoted Earl Shelp’s opinion, and he followed it by his own opinion on personhood and the right to life of the unborn and the newborn:
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If they are disabled—particularly mentally--their moral claim to life is weighed against competing rights of parents, siblings, and society itself and can be found wanting. [29]
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The more a fetus, a newborn, or an infant approximates—or is proximate to—personhood, the greater his or her moral value and hence the greater the implicit claim to life. Likewise, the further beyond the threshold of incontestable personal life an adult individual is (such as a patient with advanced Alzheimer’s disease), the less clear is that individual’s moral status and claim to morally valuable and legally protectable life. [30]
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Next Walters discussed the role of potentiality in the decisions dealing with the moral value of human beings: “A problem with recognizing potentiality is that the potential of the newborn is not new; it existed earlier in the fetus, the zygote, and even with the individual gametes;” [31] and he cited an argument used by Joel Feinberg:
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In 1930, when he was six years old, Jimmy Carter did not know it, but he was a potential president of the United States. That gave him no claim then, not even a very weak claim, to give commands to the U.S. Army. [32]
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Walters then made reference to the fact that the potentiality argument has been used by certain philosophers like Jonathan Glover, Peter Singer, and Michael Tooley to justify even infanticide: If society accepts contraception, then it probably should justify infanticide as well, since individual gametes do have the potential of becoming persons possessing self-consciousness, something certain newborns are lacking, and he cited R.M. Hare who stated:
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The Golden Rule, taken simply by itself, equally proscribes abortion, contraception, and celibacy. The point I would make is this: there is a limit to just how far back one can profitably take the notion of potentiality. [33]
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Then, Walters admitted that there is an ethical difference between taking the life of a fetus as opposed to that of a newborn. The basic difference is size, but is size alone sufficient to justify abortion and condemn infanticide? wondered Walters. If we say yes, then “a baby elephant would have greater moral standing than a petite professor … Passage through the birth canal surely does not represent a magic threshold of moral status or a dramatic leap in physiological development.” [34] He concluded this chapter of his book with the following statement:
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Physical development indicates that the earlier the embryo/fetus is aborted the less morally problematic is the decision. Relevant ethical distinctions follow: better a physical barrier than birth control pill, better morning-after pill than a monthly abortion pill such as RU-486, better RU-486 than a ten-week abortion, better a ten-week abortion than a second-trimester abortion, better an early-third-trimester abortion for an anencephalic fetus than a preterm delivery for the same condition. Similarly, if a newborn is severely disabled and a decision for nontreatment is appropriate, the earlier the decision can be made the less ethically troublesome it is. [35]
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4. Humans, Animals, and Morality
Walters began his chapter 4, “Human, Animals, and Morality,” [36] with the following probing question: “On what grounds is the sanctity of single-celled embryos greater that that of the young calf efficiently fattened at a factory farm to provide tasty veal cutlets?” [37] He immediately cited Tom Regan who argued that “The human is but one life form among many, and what distinguishes us from the larger community of life is not our power to subdue but our responsibility to protect.” [38] Of course, these types of comments reveal the source of them: the animal rights movement. Walters mentioned the response by Willard Gaylin who explained why humans belong in a special category: “The distance between man and ape is greater than the distance between ape and ameba.” [39]
And Gaylin didn’t stop there, but he added that human beings bear the “image of God” in them. This is supported by the philosophical thinking of Immanuel Kant who argued that what distinguishes human from the rest of the animal kingdom is our ability to reason. The animal rights movement has its able defenders as well, especially men like Peter Singer, who argued for the ethical treatment of all animals, which would require humans adopting a vegetarian diet. Singer’s philosophy is based on animal’s ability to feel pleasure and pain. He believes that it is our duty to maximize everybody’s pleasure while minimizing their pain.
Walter included the reasoning of Steven Sapontzis, who thinks that the moral distinction between humans and animals begins to blur when we discover that humans are not unique in the protection of their young. Animals also risk their lives in doing the same. He then cited Cardinal Bellarmine who responded with the Catholic argument that only humans are imbued with an immortal soul, for which reason even physically and mentally defective humans deserve protection because their soul is as immortal as that of the rest of us. Nevertheless, he clarified, that because animals have no hope for an afterlife, they deserve to be treated with kindness, since this temporal existence of them is the only life they will ever experience, while wrong done to humans can be addressed in the afterlife.
This Catholic dualism is countered by Alfred North Whitehead with his “process philosophy” which stresses naturalism with its direct implication for Walter’s discussion for proximate personhood: “Because of our increasing biological knowledge, the gap between human individuals and animals is becoming less distinct.” Many animals exhibit undeniable evidence of intelligent behavior, sometimes superior “strength, speed, agility, sense of smell, and so forth.” [41] If dolphins, for example, were to rate human beings on their ability to swim, we would get a less than perfect grade. Then Walters asked whether it is appropriate to use intelligence as the only factor in determining human’s unique claim to life. This led him to suggest that “the more closely that an animal approximates undisputed personhood such as most adult humans possess the greater the moral claim to life and its various goods.” [42]
Next Walters analyzed humans’ use of other animals for their own benefit: “The place where the conflict between animal moral status and public behavior is most blatant is the dinner table,” [43] he said. A huge number of animals are slaughtered to satisfy Americans taste for meat. Is this ethical, considering the fact that in our country we have an abundance of fruits, grains, and vegetables? But Walters didn’t stop here. He also wondered whether it is appropriate to procure animal organs for transplantation to humans whose hearts and livers are failing. Here is Walter’s answer: “I am arguing for an ethic that recognizes a hierarchy of moral status or value dependent on an animal’s capacity for something approaching self-consciousness.” And he cited the case of Koko, the exceptionally talented ape capable of communicating with humans through sign language as documented by National Geographic Magazine.
If humans considered that it is ethically acceptable to sacrifice the life of a sentient animal for the procurement of transplantable organs, then perhaps allowing to harvest the organs of an anencephalic baby might be morally acceptable as well, since an “anencephalic infant is not capable of the significant life experience that Koko possesses and is therefore a more morally appropriate organ source.” [44] Of course, once the transplantable organ is removed from an anencephalic baby, the result is a dead baby; but the same result is obtained when an organ is removed from an ape. The question then is: Is an anencephalic baby morally worth more than a normal and healthy ape? [45]
Walters admitted that “at the present time the reliability of diagnostic tests for permanent coma [46] and persistent vegetative state patients is doubtful,” and that “anencephalic newborns and permanent coma patients are legally alive is beyond dispute.” His solution is: “To use such individual organ sources would require changing regulations from a whole to a higher-brain criterion for the determination of death.” And in support of this alteration of the medical criteria for death he reminded us that such criteria have changed over time:
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For example, 250 years ago the professional standard for determining death was when putrefaction had begun. This measure was deemed necessary by physicians and laity alike because of too many incidents of exhumed graves with coffin lids scarred by claw marks. [47]
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This effort to redefine the death criteria might horrify those who believe in the sanctity of human life. How can society admit that diagnostic tests for determining comatose state are unreliable and then conclude that the solution is to declare those live comatose patients dead by fiat in order to remove their vital organs to prolong the life of someone who is dying? No doubt, the recipient of the transplant organ might have a better chance of enjoying life than the anencephalic or comatose patient, but does quality of life justify taking the life of someone who is not dying? Walters attempted to buttress his argument by reminding us that “in 1986 the American Medical Association ruled that it is ethical for physicians to terminate artificial nutrition and hydration in cases of permanently comatose patients.” [48]
Walters added that this analogy allows him to assert that “if certain class of patients, such as those in persistent vegetative state, are allowed to die through withdrawal of nutrition, then similarly situated patients should be able to serve as organ donors.” [49] The problem with Walters’ proposal in pro-life views is that he himself has admitted that current methods of determining when a patient is in a permanent comatose state are unreliable. If his suggestion were to be implemented, what criteria would be used to artificially determine the timing of the comatose patient death? Would it be measured in terms of days, months, or years? If years, then how many?
And even if that were to be settled, isn’t there a moral gap between removing the artificial feeding of a comatose patient and allowing for nature to take its course and actively removing a vital organ from a patient who is definitely alive and breathing? Does declaring that a breathing person is dead make him really dead? A dead person is ready for burial. Are comatose patients who have been artificially declared dead ready for burial? Would it make sense for a physician to issue a death certificate for someone who is still breathing? These are tough questions that pro-life individuals would ask before acquiescing to the modified criteria for determining death proposed by Dr. James Walters.
5. The Moral Status of Anencephalic Infants
Walter started his fifth chapter, “The Moral Status of Anencephalic Infants,” [50] with some statistics showing the great shortage of transplantable organs. At the time of his writing there were between four and eight hundred children whose only hope for survival was a liver transplant. “Currently,” said Walters, “most organs come from infants who suffer traumatic deliveries, are victims of child abuse, or are involved in automobile accidents. . . . Theoretically, a single anencephalic infant with healthy thoracic and abdominal organs could supply vital organs to save the lives of two other children (one needing a heart and another a liver).” [51] Most anencephalic newborns are either dead at birth or else die within days of birth.
Following the successful transplantation of a heart from anencephalic Baby Gabrielle to baby Paul Holc at the Loma Linda University Medical Center, a debate ensued about the ethical implications of the use of organs from anencephalic children. The Canadian Paediatric Society issued a ruling in 1990 stating that in the case of anencephalic children, a whole brain death was a prerequisite for the use of organs from said children. The problem is that “testing for brain death in newborns is not as reliable as is for older children.” [52] One solution proposed is to alter the law from whole-brain death to cerebral-brain death. Of course, the American public is “not ready or willing to equate anencephaly with death.” [53] Walters seemed inclined to such an alteration of public policy, and he is not alone in this endeavor:
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A significant number of leading physicians and bioethicists are philosophically open to a change in current law that would allow organ procurement from anencephalic infants immediately after birth. [54]
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6. Anencephalic Infants and the Law
In his last chapter, “Anencephalic Infants and the Law,” [55] Walters documented the exceptional case of Baby K, whose mother refused to have an abortion when her physician informed her that her unborn baby was an anencephalic case. After birth, the newborn was placed on a ventilator, and her pediatrician asked her to authorize the removal of the ventilator. She again refused. The hospital went to court in order to force the removal of the ventilator. The judge sided with the mother and the newborn baby remained alive for two years and a half. [56] In another case, the Florida court ruled that the parents of an anencephalic baby could not donate the baby’s organs until the newborn was dead. “I can’t authorize,” declared the judge, “someone to take your baby’s life, however short, however unsatisfactory, to save another child. Death is a fact, not an opinion.” [57] The baby’s parents appealed to the state Supreme Court without success.
The problem with anencephalic babies is that they do not have a “higher” brain, [58] although their brain stem is intact. Prompted by this medical fact, in 1986 California State Senator Milton Marks introduced a bill that would have defined anencephalic babies at birth as dead. Loma Linda University Professor Gerald Winslow declared that such a change in the definition of death was absurd in spite of the fact that anencephalic babies are never likely to experience consciousness.
Reacting to these efforts to redefine death, the President’s Commission developed the Uniform Determination of Death Act, which requires the following: “(1) cessation of respiratory functions, and (2) irreversible cessation of all brain functions, including those of the brain stem.” [59] Nevertheless, the American Medical Association judicial council determined in 1986 that the removal of treatment and intravenous nutrition from a permanently comatose patient was permissible.
Walters suggested that “it is time to realize that when there is no personal life, the individual is dead, ” [60] that parents should be allowed to choose their preferred definition of death from the following options: (1) cardio-respiratory death, (2) whole-brain death, or (3) higher-brain death. And he offered the following reason for his proposal:
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Parents already make vital decisions about their offspring when they consider abortion—within legal limits. If making such decision in regard to healthy fetuses is permissible, it should be permissible for parents of higher-brain-absent newborns to consider their tragic infants to be legally dead. [61]
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Pro-lifers would counter that a bad decision cannot be validated on the basis on a worse one. They might agree that killing an anencephalic baby makes more ethical sense than taking the life of a healthy fetus, but the problem is that both actions are morally wrong. Besides, there is a higher redeeming value in saving someone else’s life than preserving the lifestyle of the pregnant woman.
*James W. Walters’ position on abortion: Pro-choice.
Final Observations and Remarks
In this chapter the writings of only one individual were considered, James W. Walters, the author of the book What is a person? and his position on abortion is pro-choice. Following the publication of this book, Dr. Dalton Baldwin’s Schumann Pavilion Sabbath School Class devoted one Sabbath to the study of each chapter contained therein. On one of those Sabbaths, Dr. Fritz Guy led the discussion, and he made the following observation about the alleged purpose of Walter’s book: To facilitate the procurement of human specimens for scientific research.
Of course, if science is allowed to redefine the meaning of death, then live human organs can be harvested from live [now labeled as dead] human beings. The objective is laudable: saving human lives. The moral question is: Is it ethically acceptable to cut short the life of one human being in order to prolong the life of another, and without that individual’s consent? Would a loving parent allow the harvesting of an organ from a dying son or a daughter in order to prolong his own life? Shouldn’t society allow the Golden Rule to prevail when dealing with organ transplantation?
Endnotes
[1]James W. Walters. What Is a Person? An Ethical Exploration (Urbana and Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 1-181. At the time of the publication of this book, Walters held the position of professor of ethical studies at Loma Linda University, and editor of Who’s to Live: Ethics and Aging and Facing Limits: Ethics and Health Care for the Elderly.
[2]Ibid., 1.
[3]Ibid.
[4]Was the personhood of Jesus temporarily obliterated when he became a conceptus in Mary’s womb?
[5]Ibid., 3. Of course, Walters fails to specify how long society should wait before a patient is determined to be “irretrievable beyond consciousness.” There have been documented cases where patients have regained consciousness after years of being in a comatose state.
[6]Needless to say, this represents a radical departure from the position held by the early pioneers of the SDA church.
[7]Ibid., 4-5. This last statement would be considered anathema to pro-life individuals, who view human beings as possessing intrinsic moral value regardless of their intelligence, self-awareness, size, location, or pragmatic contribution to society. They believe that only God possesses the ability to assess the correct moral value of human beings.
[8]If anencephalic infants possess less moral value than normal human beings, then Walter’s argument makes sense; nevertheless, if human beings have intrinsic moral value regardless of their mental condition, then it would be immoral to sacrifice their lives in order to save the life of others. Much less remove their vital organs while they are still breathing, which is what science wants in order to secure fresh human organs for transplantation purposes.
[9]Walters, 7.
[10]Prolonging the life of a comatose patient indefinitely through artificial means is an ethically gray area even for pro-lifers. There is a huge moral gap between depriving a patient who can feed himself of food and water and disconnecting a feeding tube. Nevertheless, it must be taken into account that sometimes feeding tubes are chosen for the convenience of caretakers, in which case the disconnection of said tubes should not be accompanied by a deprivation of water and nutrition.
[11]Walters, 10.
[12]Ibid., 17.
[13]God’s revelation to his people is progressive. In Matthew 5 and elsewhere Jesus contrasted Moses’ teaching with his own. He repeatedly used the phrase, “But I say unto you,” thus showing that God requires from his children a higher moral standard today than the one set by Moses.
[14]Walters, 19.
[15]Physicalism stresses the physical aspects of human beings, while personalism zeroes in on the mental capacities.
[16]Walters, 22. This line of reasoning would be rejected by pro-lifers, most of whom consider that only God Almighty can assess the moral value of every human individual. Was Jesus himself at the time of conception simply an “organized society of single-celled individuals” with a “possible or probable destiny”? Can someone believe that Jesus in his embryonic state possessed no more value than the “unfertilized egg in the body of a nun,” or that his value was comparable to that of a mosquito? From an evolutionary point of view, this line of reasoning makes sense; but not for one who believes that only the Omniscient Lord can accurately detect the moral value of an embryo. There is a huge difference between a woman’s egg and an embryo. The genetic markers of a woman’s egg identify said egg as belonging to the woman. We can’t affirm the same about the genetic markers of an embryo, which are so unique there is no other individual in the world sharing them. The size of a mosquito might be comparable to that of a conceptus, but if Harsthorne think that there is no difference in moral value between the two, then we might wonder about the moral value of Harsthorne brain!
[17]Ibid. 24.
[18]Ibid., 26.
[19]Ibid., 31.
[20]Ibid., 32.
[21]Ibid., 33-34.
[22]Ibid., 35.
[23]Ibid., 38.
[24]Ibid., 51-52. From a human point of view, some either born or unborn babies may not seem to possess much moral value. Nevertheless we need to ask: What is their moral worth in God’s eyes?
[25]Ibid., 52. No doubt that pro-lifers would argue that morality is rooted not in humanistic emotional underpinnings, but rather in the conviction that there is a Higher power to whom we owe our existence and to whom we eventually will have to answer for our moral actions. Emotions are a poor moral guide for our ethical thinking and moral behavior. It is no coincidence that the legalization of abortion followed the sexual revolution of the sixties. The first step towards the disregard of the right to life of the unborn was taken when society departed from the moral dictum that reads: “You shall not commit adultery.” Said departure paved the way for the violation of the other one that states: “You shall not murder.” The worst crimes can be traced to the unrestrained reliance on frail and blind emotional feelings.
[26]Ibid. 54.
[27]Walters, 55.
[28]There is also the moral chasm between refusing to extend indefinitely the life of a severely deformed newborn by artificial means and actively poisoning or dismembering the same child before birth through an abortion. Likewise, there is a moral contrast between refusing heroic measures to extend the life of a patient and depriving him/her of hydration and nutrition just because the individual will die anyway. Society has no moral right to kill people because they are likely to die soon.
[29]Walters, 61.
[30]Ibid., 63. This humanistic approach to human moral value contrasts greatly with the one exhibited by Jesus Christ. Those who brought the adulterous woman to Jesus considered that she had no right to life, and were ready to stone her. Jesus thought otherwise. When children tried to get close to Jesus, his disciples believed that they were not entitled to such a privilege. Jesus said: “Let the children come to me!” In God’s eyes, those with greatest needs possess the greatest moral value. This means that the children, the unborn, the newborn, the handicapped, the disabled, and the comatose, might possess a higher moral value than those who have no special needs. Jesus portrayed himself as the good shepherd who left the 99 sheep who were safe in the fold, and went in search of the one that got lost.
[31]Ibid., 66.
[32]Ibid. Granted, Carter did not have at that point in his life any claim to the presidency of the United States, but he did have a claim to life. Besides, there is a significant difference between individual gametes, whose genetic markers match those of other individuals, and a fetus with unique genetic markers belonging to nobody else in the world.
[33]Ibid., 67.
[34]Ibid., 68.
[35]Ibid., 69. The main problem with this line of reasoning is that humans have not been gifted with the ability of properly determining moral values of other members of the human race. This is the reason God issued an injunction against the killing of innocent individuals.
[36]Ibid., 78.
[37]Ibid.
[38]Ibid., 79.
[39]Ibid.
[40]Ibid., 97.
[41]Ibid., 100.
[42]Ibid.
[43]Ibid., 103.
[44]Ibid., 108.
[45]Walters seems to argue in favor of the ape, while pro-lifers would counter that apes were not created in the “image of God” while human being were, and they might add that Jesus came to die for humans, not apes. They might also add that taking the life on one human being to prolong the life of another may not be acceptable in the eyes of the Creator, in spite of what the parents of an anencephalic baby might think and say.
[46]Several years ago, when the father of Nic Samojluk was hospitalized before his death, the attending physician informed him that his dad was unresponsive and was in a coma state. Samojluk got close to his dying dad and asked him: “Do you know who came to visit you today?” The dying man whispered back: “Yes, I know.” There have been reported cases of comatose patients who after getting out of their coma state, have altered their will as a result of things they had heard while in a state of coma. If society decides to implement Dr. Walters’ new criteria for death, then many patients who are actually alive will be declared legally dead.
[47]Walters, 112.
[48]Ibid., 113.
[49]Ibid., 113-114. Two wrongs do not make either one of them right.
[50]Ibid., 115.
[51]Ibid., 115-116.
[52]Ibid., 122.
[53]Ibid., 129. The public is not ready because altering the criteria for determining death will not change the fact that these anencephalic children are alive. Removing vital organs from a live human being is morally abhorrent, especially for those affiliated with the pro-life movement.
[54]Ibid., 139.
[55]Ibid., 140.
[56]If Walter’s proposal were to be implemented, a death certificate for Baby K would have been issues two years prior to the time he stopped breathing. When a physician declares a baby dead, you bury the infant. Would society condone burying a baby that is still breathing?
[57]Walters, 141.
[58]Pro-lifers might ask: How can science declare the higher brain of an anencephalic baby dead if, according to their own admission, the newborn doesn’t have a higher brain to begin with? How can they say that an anencephalic newborn is dead, and then instruct the hospital caretakers to maintain the baby alive until the organ can be harvested? If the babies were really dead, there would be no need to maintain them alive until the organs are harvested! Can someone remove a beating heart from a baby without killing the infant? And how can a physician issue a death certificate for a newborn anencephalic if the baby’s heart is still beating? These are hard questions for those who would like to redefine death.
[59]Walters, 148.
[60]Ibid., 149.
[61]Ibid., 151.
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