{"id":24402,"date":"2009-03-07T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-07T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2009\/03\/georgetown-univ-prof-supports\/"},"modified":"2009-03-07T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-07T14:00:00","slug":"georgetown-univ-prof-supports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2009\/03\/georgetown-univ-prof-supports\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgetown Univ Prof supports death with dignity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">In 2008 Georgetown University Philosophy professor Tom L. Beauchamp coauthored <i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal\">Principles of Biomedical Ethics<\/i>, a widely used book in bioethics courses, in which he sanctions and defends &#8220;physician-assisted dying.&#8221;<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><o:p><font face=\"Times New Roman\" color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><\/font><font color=\"#000000\"><\/font><font face=\"Times New Roman\">According to a Winter 2008 <i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicscholars.org\/index.php\">Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly<\/a><\/i> article by J. Brian Benestad, Beauchamp and his coauthor pronounce unconvincing &#8220;some of the arguments against the legalization of &#8216;physician-assisted dying.'&#8221; Throughout the book the authors are redefining terms &#8220;that used to have nothing to do with administering death-producing drugs,&#8221; explains Benestad. For them, &#8220;Lethal pills are called medication; helping suffering patients to kill themselves is called virtuous (beneficent, just, etc.). Not helping these patients is a failure to respect their dignity.&#8221; In <i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal\">Principles<\/i>, the authors state: &#8220;We maintain that physician assistance in hastening death is best viewed as part of a continuum of medical care.&#8221; Benestad counters the argument, citing &#8220;the medical profession&#8217;s devotion to heal and refuse to kill &#8211; its ethical center &#8211; will be permanently destroyed&#8221; by such a policy. (courtesy of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cardinalnewmansociety.org\/\">Cardinal Newman Society<\/a>)<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><\/font><font color=\"#000000\"><\/font><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><\/font>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font size=\"3\"><\/font><font color=\"#000000\"><\/font><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><em>So much for professors at so-called Catholic universities either thinking with the Church or at least not publicly contradicting Catholic teaching. Is this beyond the exercise of academic freedom viz. faith and reason? It&#8217;s interesting&nbsp;Beauchamp received the Pellegrino Medal in 2004 which honors recipients for contributions made&nbsp;in healthcare ethics following the spirit of the father of the&nbsp;American&nbsp;bioethics movement, Dr. Edmund Pellegrino. Pellegrino is a practicing Catholic and on faculty of Georgetown.<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2008 Georgetown University Philosophy professor Tom L. Beauchamp coauthored Principles of Biomedical Ethics, a widely used book in bioethics courses, in which he sanctions and defends &#8220;physician-assisted dying.&#8221; &nbsp; According to a Winter 2008 Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly article by J. Brian Benestad, Beauchamp and his coauthor pronounce unconvincing &#8220;some of the arguments &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2009\/03\/georgetown-univ-prof-supports\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Georgetown Univ Prof supports death with dignity<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,47],"tags":[2002,1899],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24402"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24402\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}