24/07: Thoughts on Healthcare Reform
Category: Religion & Public Policy
Posted by: an okie gardener
Chuck Colson has an article on health care reform in Christianity Today. In favor of a reform, he raises important questions, and urges Christians to participate in the debate.
Here is his next-to-last paragraph:
Christians have to reassert that there are transcendent standards of right and wrong. While some kinds of heroic care may be withheld in hopeless cases, it is wrong to intentionally take a life. Second, we must champion care for the poor and the weak. Bringing health-care reform to the forefront is the first step. But prudence—a classical virtue that looks objectively at complex situations and applies moral truth—is the third concern. How do we best allocate limited resources?
A while back I posted some considerations on end-of-life issues, which I now repeat.
My pastoral work this week has me thinking about life and death and modern medicine: when to fight death and when to accept it.
Here is my view, for what its worth.
If I were diagnosed with cancer, and told I needed extensive chemo and radiation, I would ask the following questions: what are the odds that the treatments would bring me to a state of being cancer free? if I take the treatments, how much longer would I live than if I refused treatment? if I take the treatments, what would the extra time be like?
If I were told that the treatments would give me a better than even chance of becoming cancer free, then I would accept treatment. If I were told that the odds were good that treatment would add years to my life, years that could be productive, then I would accept treatment. On the other hand, if I were told that there was almost no way treatment could make me cancer free, that treatment probably would add minimal time to my life, and that this time would not be productive, I would refuse treatment. These decisions I would make as a Christian.
Christian wisdom on this issue gives me two guidelines for my decision making.
On the one hand, I am a steward of my own body and its health, the one to whom my body and its health actually belongs is Jesus Christ. My life is not my own to destroy by active measures or by neglect. My purpose in life is to glorify God and work for the Kingdom. If treatment has good hope of a cure, or of adding productive years to my life, then I am under obligation to take treatment. (Scriptures to read include 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.")
On the other hand, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die;" Ecclesiastes 3:1-2. None of us are going to live forever as we now are. Unless Jesus returns sooner, all of us reading this will die. As Christians we should regard our own death as did Paul--"for to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain," Philippians 1:21.
As a Christian I am not free to take my own life or to neglect my own health, including neglecting treatment that may give me health. But, I am under no obligation to try to prolong life merely for the sake of avoiding death. I believe these things to be true when we must make decisions for those incapable of making their own.
Here is his next-to-last paragraph:
Christians have to reassert that there are transcendent standards of right and wrong. While some kinds of heroic care may be withheld in hopeless cases, it is wrong to intentionally take a life. Second, we must champion care for the poor and the weak. Bringing health-care reform to the forefront is the first step. But prudence—a classical virtue that looks objectively at complex situations and applies moral truth—is the third concern. How do we best allocate limited resources?
A while back I posted some considerations on end-of-life issues, which I now repeat.
My pastoral work this week has me thinking about life and death and modern medicine: when to fight death and when to accept it.
Here is my view, for what its worth.
If I were diagnosed with cancer, and told I needed extensive chemo and radiation, I would ask the following questions: what are the odds that the treatments would bring me to a state of being cancer free? if I take the treatments, how much longer would I live than if I refused treatment? if I take the treatments, what would the extra time be like?
If I were told that the treatments would give me a better than even chance of becoming cancer free, then I would accept treatment. If I were told that the odds were good that treatment would add years to my life, years that could be productive, then I would accept treatment. On the other hand, if I were told that there was almost no way treatment could make me cancer free, that treatment probably would add minimal time to my life, and that this time would not be productive, I would refuse treatment. These decisions I would make as a Christian.
Christian wisdom on this issue gives me two guidelines for my decision making.
On the one hand, I am a steward of my own body and its health, the one to whom my body and its health actually belongs is Jesus Christ. My life is not my own to destroy by active measures or by neglect. My purpose in life is to glorify God and work for the Kingdom. If treatment has good hope of a cure, or of adding productive years to my life, then I am under obligation to take treatment. (Scriptures to read include 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.")
On the other hand, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die;" Ecclesiastes 3:1-2. None of us are going to live forever as we now are. Unless Jesus returns sooner, all of us reading this will die. As Christians we should regard our own death as did Paul--"for to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain," Philippians 1:21.
As a Christian I am not free to take my own life or to neglect my own health, including neglecting treatment that may give me health. But, I am under no obligation to try to prolong life merely for the sake of avoiding death. I believe these things to be true when we must make decisions for those incapable of making their own.
an okie gardener wrote:
Dear Okie,
First let me extend my sympathy for a week in which events led you to ponder end if life issues. I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusions and earnestly hope you never find yourself in the role of being diagnosed with cancer.
Now let me enter just a little more food for your thought. Assume you do have cancer and are assured of several good years but are also assured that after a few years no matter what you do the cancer will ultimately take your life.
Expensive experimental treatment will not save you; however it will add to the medical knowledge of the scientist trying to find cures and help for the generations that follow you. You will be using up significant amounts of your families money. You will prolong your life by a few years. You have excellent insurance and they will cover the majority of these costs. You are in a rare demographic which makes you a prime canidate for this study.
As a Christian what would you do?