Deuteronomy, the Old Law, and Smoking

Overlyconscious has objected to the general consensus that smoking is immoral (seriously or not) because it harms the body that we are bound, naturally and supernaturally, to nurture and non nocere. Now we can begin a good discussion.

While there are substantial principles upon which Overlyconscious may have based his objection (some of them subconscious perhaps), let us deal first with his use of Deuteronomy 14:26, from which he concludes that God encourages smoking, as he does drinking, as long as it is done "before the Lord."

The text of Deut. 14:26 should be considered, as all Scripture should, in its context.

Deuteronomy 1 begins with "These are the words that Moses spoke to all Isreal beyond the Jordan in the wilderness... Moses spoke to the people of Isreal according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them... Moses undertook to explain this law..."

Deuteronomy 12 begins with "These are the statutes and ordinances which you shall be careful to do in the land which the Lord ... has given you to possess." The enumeration of the statutes, now referred to as the "Old Law," continues for many chapters. Here are some examples:

Deut 12:15 "You may slaughter and eat flesh within any of your towns, as much as you desire, according to the blessing of the Lord..."
Deut 14:3 ff "You shall not eat any abominable thing. These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat... And the swine, because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud, is undlean for you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch... You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk."
Deut 21:10 ff "When you go forth to war against your enemies... and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you have desire for her... then you shall take her home to your house and she shall shave her head and pare her nails... If you have no delight in her, you shall let her go where she will, but you shall not sell her for money... since you have humiliated her."

These, and others, are very interesting prescriptions, and we wonder if Overlyconscious follows them all, including Deut 24 - Moses' prescription for divorce (which Christ explained was allowed for the Jews' "hardness of heart" [Mt. 19:1-ff). The point is that the Old Law lays an enormous burden upon man which, according to St. Paul, did not have the power to save anyway. You can't choose part of the Old Law to justify your practices without swallowing the whole of it. And its bloody hard to swallow.

But Deuteronomy 14:26 doesn't allow for smoking in even the remotest senses of interpretation. Look at verse 22-23: "You shall tithe all the yield of your seed, which comes forth from the field year by year. And before the Lord, in the place which He will choose, to make His name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine, your oil..." Moses is prescribing what should be done with the tithed portion of an Isrealites property or wealth. As he goes on to prescribe in 24-25, if you live too far away to carry it all, turn it into money, and then, in your verse 26: "spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen, or sheep, or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves; and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household." And, being overly conscious, we wouldn't forget the next verse 27: "And you shall not forsake the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you."

It's obvious that what is being laid out is what to do with the tithed portion of the yearly harvest. What you could possibly conclude about cigarettes from this verse is this : once in the place where the Lord has chosen, that you can buy them, if you use your money (preferably silver) obtained from exchanging the tithed portion of your yearly harvest (or income). When you have bought your cigarettes, you may eat them, in the presence of the Lord, all the while, of course, rejoicing.

Ark of the New Covenant, pray for us

Today is the feast of the Holy Rosary. It behooves us all (as Thomas a Kempis would say) to reflect a little today on the great gift we have in the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of Christ and our mother. I would like to offer a brief consideration of the ark of the covenant in the Old Testament as a type for Mary in the New.

"Ark of the New Covenant" was a term coined by St. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, Confessor and Doctor of the Church; born c. 296; died 2 May, 373. No one doubts the orthodoxy of such an early and notable church father, nor his close chronological and geographical link with the apostles themselves. That's why I think it's not fantastic to interpret Revelation in the following way.

Let's turn to St. John's Revelation 11:19 and read,

Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, and peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a violent hailstorm.

St. John is writing to Christians who were Jews, who knew Scripture and Jewish history better than we've ever known anything. The ark of the covenant, crown and glory of the people of God, victory in war and seat of God Himself, had been missing for some 500 years. For John to say that he saw it in his vision is no small thing. "Tell us more, John!" is an appropriate response. But he goes on, in the next verse, to say

A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.

"Wait a second, tell us more about the ark, John!" That's exactly what he's doing.

The ark of the covenant was a box of acasia wood, covered in gold, with two huge cherubim on top and an empty throne-like seat, for which the box was like a footstool. Inside the ark were placed three things: the tablets of the ten commandments, manna (the miracle bread), and the rod of Aaron that had blossomed. These are what made the box holy, holier than the holy of holies in which it was kept.

Is it not apparent that Mary was made holy, infinitely holier than the wooden ark, by what was inside her? The wooden box held the word of God in stone, she held the Word of God made flesh. The box contained the miracle bread, the manna from the desert; she held the Bread of Life Himself. The staff of Aaron was the power of the priesthood; Mary held the Eternal High Priest in her womb. She was thus the seat of the Godhead, sanctified by Sanctity within her.

The similarities are endless. Mary, like the ark in 2 Sam 6, went up in haste to the hill country of Judah. David leapt before the ark, as did a preborn John the Baptist... and on and on.

It's neat to think of the holiness of Mary (St. Thomas says she's holier than the combined holiness of every creature below her) and at the same time remember that Christ gave her to us on the cross.

Food for the smoking soul

Smoking cigarettes is strongly associated with numerous medical disorders, most of which are the top killers in North America. Many of us think that smoking only leads to cancer, which it does. But the evidence also suggests that smoking is largely responsible for the rising rates of heart disease, chronic respiratory disorders and diabetes (Type 1 and 2). These guys kill more poor fat North Americans than lung cancer does; they deal death a little slower and a little more painfully.

Now, considering the Aristotelian ethical tradition which considers good health somewhat of a responsibility and certainly a necessity for happiness, as well as the Christian revelation which reveals that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, what next? What shall we conclude objectively as to the personal moral legitimacy of smoking...

Bloggers, comment away.

Personally Opposed on Sept. 29

Just don't think and you can entertain a proposition and its opposite at almost the same time.

I was in the "women's clinic" for a rotation the other morning. I met one of my Catholic collegue medical students, who's working in the clinic for a month. "You know they do terminations here?" she mentions. I know. I've dreaded coming into this dungeon-like basement unit for months. But today is the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, and with Mass and communion minutes behind me, I waltz into the valley of darkness. "I spent an afternoon watching them," she continues. The terminations, that is. Putting together the little pieces in a cold steel bowl to make sure nothing is left behind in ... mom.

What did she think? "Pretty disturbing" was quickly followed with, "but I'm glad it's an option for women who aren't ready to have babies yet." Good girl. You know what you're supposed to say. "I wouldn't do something like that myself," she assures me. Very interesting. OK, Catholic girl, let's have it out right here in the office of the women's clinic, across the hall from the (thankfully) empty abortion suite.

If these little hands and feet you've had to "fit together" are just tissue, abortion is a great choice, really. But if it's a baby who's being dismembered, whose pieces you're fitting together, and whose limbs you're counting in that bowl, then abortion can't be a choice. You can't be allowed to choose to murder. And you know, because you feel pretty disturbed, that it's a baby. End of story.

Time flies and habits die

Writing isn't easy.

Doing anything regularly isn't easy either.

(Except sleeping and eating.)

So that's why it's hard to write regularly.

We'll all find ourselves, at fifty years of age, in tears over the same faults, the same bad habits, in pursuit of the same virtues. All because we're too lazy, too disorganized, too proud, too discouraged, to do any better.

I think a passage of St. Msgr. Escriva is in order:

"'Tomorrow!' Sometimes it is prudence; many times it is the adverb of the defeated."

Triumph of the Cross & Chiropractic Theory

Today Catholics celebrate the feast of the Triumph of the Cross. It may seem odd that chiropracters have any light to shed on the theological meaning behind this feast, but here's what I heard from some chiropracters who were presenting/defending their art to my class today.

The old biomechanical model which forms the basis for the medical and chiropractic treatment of musculoskeletal disorders assumes that degenerative changes (e.g. to a joint) occur first, leading to structural changes with normal loading, which gives rise to pain.

Based on new research data, the new biomechanical model conceptualizes joint damage and its sequelae in the reverse order: structural damage occurs first (with improper loading, etc.), followed by inflammation and degenerative change, which leads to pain. What is very interesting here is the implication that by avoiding structural change (e.g. to your vertebrae, by poor posture, bad lifting, etc.) one can avoid degenerative change (osteoarthritis, lower back pain, osteoporosis, etc.). Since mechanisms for inducing structural change (e.g. habitual poor posture) proceed directly from the human will, it follows that the perfectly informed will would not make the bad choices that would ultimately induce (at least) degenerative types of disease. After all, degenerative change is only the response of the properly functioning bodily systems to damage from without.

But man before the fall possessed a preternatural will, capable of making the right choices and thereby avoiding bone and tissue degeneration. Which means that when sin entered the world, clouding man's will, so did the pain of degenerative disease. Lower back pain complaints account for the most visits to primary care physicians after respiratory disorders.

But today we celebrate the triumph of the cross, the cross by which Our Lord took upon his perfect body all the pain and agony of death, damage, degeneration and dispair. And by His stripes we are healed. Death no longer has a hold on us.

Pontius Pilate, Patron Saint of Modern Politicians

Here is a very insightful and readable article about the Passion, and the modern world's impression of how Pontius Pilate was betrayed. Of course, these days we meditate not so much on Pilate, but on the Truth standing before him, but this helps anyway.

http://nationalreview.com/comment/de_souza200404080847.asp

Fr. Raymond de Souza is Catholic Chaplain of Newman Center at Queen's University, Kingston.

Applying Double Effect in Medicine

[Email from professor]

I thought I'd follow up a little bit on our discussion
about the doctrine of double effect (DDE) today. The
intent is a primary component of the doctrine.

Let's take the example of the mother in labour whose
life is being threatened. In scenario 1, the baby's
head is too big to be delivered, the mother will die
secondary to labour (perhaps because her blood pressure
is too high) and the options are either to continue the
delivery because the baby cannot be pulled back out
via caesarian section and the likely outcome is that the
mother will die, and perhaps the baby too OR the
baby's skull is collapse resulting in its death but the
mother is saved.

In scenario 2, the mother is having life threatening
placental hemorrhage, and needs to have an emergency
hysterectomy to save her life. In this case, the baby
may die as a result of the emergency hysterectomy
because it is still in the uterus and cannot be delivered
without the mother dying in the process.

How are these 2 situations different?

In scenario 1, the method by which the mother's life
will be saved is through the death of the baby.
Therefore according to DDE it is not justifiable since the
"intent" is to kill the baby, which will result in
saving the mother. The intended outcome of the action
(killing the baby and ending the labour) is immoral, and
even if the indirect outcome (saving the mother) is
good.

In scenario 2, the method by which the mother's life
will be saved is via hysterectomy. It is justifiable
since the "intent" is to save the mother. The intended
outcome of the action (saving the mother by stopping
the hemorrhage) is moral, while the unintended although
inextricably linked outcome (death of the baby) is
only secondary.

Of course, the intent in this circumstance is linked
to the deontological rule/commandment "thou shalt not
kill", but the issue here is that in scenario 1 killing
is the intended action, where in scenario 2 it is an
unavoidable consequence.

Personally I have difficulties with DDE once I start
thinking too much about it. It can be "wrongly" used
to either justify problematic actions or inaction
(e.g., letting the mother die in scenario 1 when the baby
will die anyways, too). It can also be twisted when we
start thinking of withdrawing treatment or
administering palliative medications at the end of life--semantic
arguments about whether you believed someone was going
to die or whether you were letting the natural course
of their disease progress.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed class and that I clarified
some of your questions about DDE.

Cheers,

[quisutdeus responds]

The principle of double effect allows one to perform an action which has two effects, one good and the other bad, provided the following four conditions are met simultaneously: (cf. Germain Grisez)

1. the act itself must be good or at least morally neutral,
2. the agent must intend the good effect,
3. the good effect must not result from the bad effect,
4. and there must be a proportionately grave reason to justify the act (good effect outweighs bad).

I'm not sure you properly apply DDE in the first of your two scenarios, even though I agree with the conclusions. In scenario 1, the action itself (collapsing the baby's skull) is always wrong, even apart from consideration of the good effect that follows, for to kill an innocent person is intrinsically immoral. For this reason it fails to satisfy the first criterion and double effect cannot apply.

The argument from "intent" fails to distinguish the two scenarios. Intent is an act of the will in a reasoning being capable of freely choosing. In both scenarios the effect primarily intended by most surgeons is to save the life of the mother. The surgeon achieves the desired end differently in each case (she DOES something differently). In both cases the death of the baby (hysterectomy resulting in baby dying and evacuation of baby's brain resulting in baby dying) is unintended by the agent. In one case, however, when the surgeon says, "we couldn't save your baby," she means that she killed your baby. In the other case she means she did all she could, but the baby died as was foreseen. The moral distinction between the two is made in reference to the act itself.

A couple of things follow from the four criteria that we may grapple with personally.

The first is that sometimes we will have to allow an innocent mother to die because we are morally unable to kill the innocent baby trapped in her birth canal. While this is extremely tragic (as well as exceedingly rare) there are profoundly positive cultural implications to be obtained by affirming life not only in principle (thou shalt not kill - dignity of personhood, etc.) but also in act.

Second, the principle of double effect can work the other way in scenario 1, where the (consenting) mother can be operated on to save the baby, with the high probability that she will die during surgery. The case of Gianna Bretta Molla, an Italian pediatrian, is similar. She refused surgery to remove a large ovarian cyst during her pregnancy because it would result in the death of her child. She died shortly after giving birth in 1962.

Third, the intent itself is enough to vitiate a morally neutral or even good act. In the second scenario, for instance, if the surgeon performing the hysterectomy intends to kill the baby to save the mother, the surgeon IS morally guilty of killing the baby.

I enjoyed your comments. Let me know what you think of these.

The Bioethics of Killing & Letting Die

There has never been a shortage of poor philosophers at the disposal of big business. The case of hospital bioethicists is no exception. And as a sure sign that they are poor philosophers, they are almost never financially wanting.

Bioethicists are a select group of co-affirming free thinkers who are hired, at good price, by the healthcare industry (hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, government departments) in order to sell hard policies. Bioethicists are proficient at manufacturing “ethical” arguments for previously unethical practices that promise to save their employers lots of money.

“Anyone familiar with medical research knows that ethics committees are indispensable – they have the important job of wringing their hands and furrowing their brows before writing the permission slips to cross lines that heretofore were thought impermissible to cross.” more

One current battlefield is the area of withholding and withdrawing treatment at the end of life. Physicians in intensive care units face death and dying on a daily basis. They are regularly an intimate part of the life and death decisions that face dying patients and their families. It is often the physician who counsels the patient and family, and inevitably the physician who implements the decision that has been reached.

Bioethicists, out to save their employers money, are trying to convince doctors not to save their patients. It is happening in hospitals everywhere in the “developed” nations, and it is becoming less and less subtle. Under the guise of “Futile Care Theory,” hospitals are putting in place procedural protocols which allow them to refuse treatment to sick patients, whether they want it or not, if the patient is deemed incurable or terminal. Treatment doesn’t just refer to new and expensive therapies; it extends to life-sustaining food, water and basic hygiene.

On the basis of “futile care theory,” Leslie Burke, age 44, is suing his hospital in the UK for the right to remain alive. Doctors there have refused (in advance) to provide him food or water when is condition deteriorates to the point of needing a feeding tube.

The parents of David Glass were shocked to find the same attitude from their doctors at St. Mary’s Hospital in Portsmouth. In 1998, at age 12, David suffered respiratory failure. Not only did doctors refuse to treat his life, but they sought to administer a “palliative” agent to David in order to hasten his death. They reasoned that David’s profound developmental and physical disabilities made his life not worth living, and therefore not worth saving.

And healthcare boards across North America are quietly implementing similar policies. Physicians, the final common pathway in the withholding and withdrawing that will bring lives to their end, are either unaware or don’t care. But those who don’t care have to be taught to overcome their intuitive instinct that killing is wrong. Enter the bioethicists. Some killing is okay. Some letting die is okay too. In fact, anything is okay given the right motivation, intention, circumstances and societal context.
Here are some delightful selections from my professor’s bioethics notes for tomorrow’s lecture on withholding and withdrawing treatment. She is also our hospital bioethicist. We’ll face-off at 8:30am EST tomorrow.

On Moral Intuition: “Often people will intuitively believe that while it is appropriate in certain instances to withhold treatment, it is never right to withdraw treatment.”

Intuition, however, is usually a sign of what is right for the most part. If the patient refuses an IV line, I won’t put it in. If his only source of food and water is his IV line, I won’t take it out. To do so would be to starve him, and removal of the line would mean death.

On Conscience: “It is important to keep in mind that because something “feels” right or wrong is not definitive in terms of deciding morality.”

But the exception of an ignorant or malformed conscience proves the rule that conscience is generally a good guide to moral action.

On Killing and Letting Die: “Is killing always wrong? Certainly murder is always wrong… it is wrong by definition. It is defined as the wrongful killing of one human being by another. But killing non-humans (animals) is largely accepted by most societies for food, clothes, some research, etc. Killing humans is largely accepted by most societies in certain instances like self defense and war. So, there are instances where we say killing is justified… To argue that something is wrong, a priori, simply because it is killing cannot be done successfully.”

Murder is properly defined as the taking of an innocent human life, to distinguish it from killing in self defense, for instance. The reason it is wrong is because it offends against the infinite dignity of the human person, a being capable of reason and free choice.

On Life after Death: “It may be that death is nothingness and nothingness has no positive or negative value. It is nothing… it may be that not being alive is arguably better than being alive.”

Somewhere in my remote past I learned what I already had known since I first knew anything: being is better than non-being. Something is better than nothing. It is true that suffering can be so intense that it makes us want to die to make it end. But avoidance of suffering is not the same as seeking death. It is precisely in these moments that a suffering patient needs comfort, relief and support. In the darkness of suffering, a physician can snuff out the flame of hope, or affirm, respect (and treat) the dignity of both human suffering and personhood.

Hate Crime Comes to Canada

OTTAWA, March 25, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) –
LifeSiteNews.com has learned that homosexual hate crime bill
C-250 was passed without amendment in the Senate
Committee this morning. The dangerous legislation which
threatens to shut down free speech on the issue of
homosexuality has been sent back to the Senate with a final
vote which could occur as early as Friday but more
likely Monday.


Bill C-250 is pending its final approval by Canada's "free-thinking" senators. Although it has received little or no coverage by the similarly "free-thinking" media, it represents a grave and imminent danger to Canadian's freedom of speech and religion.

Introduced by homosexual activist MP Svend Robinson, and passing through Parliament by a narrow
and to some, a questionable margin, Bill C-250 introduces the term "sexual orientation" into the current Hate Crimes criminal code.

Arguments for and against to follow...