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January 24, 2012
Disability: A Thread for Weaving Joy
Here's another excellent contribution to Public Discourse today -- Archbishop Chaput's remarks at the Cardinal O''Connor Conference on Life: "Disability: A Thread for Weaving Joy." He explores with great insight the mix of suffering and joy that accompanies the experience of caring for people with Down Syndrome in our culture. A taste:
These children with disabilities are not a burden; they’re a priceless gift to all of us. They’re a doorway to the real meaning of our humanity. Whatever suffering we endure to welcome, protect, and ennoble these special children is worth it because they’re a pathway to real hope and real joy. Abortion kills a child; it wounds a precious part of a woman’s own dignity and identity; and it steals hope. That’s why it’s wrong. That’s why it needs to end. That’s why we march.
In the recent discussions by Rick and Robby about the organ transplant for the child with disabilities, I was struck once again by that curious paradox of our contemporary culture -- what strikes me as the deepening consensus that a disability doesn't detract from the basic dignity of a human who lives among us, along with the consensus displayed by 80% of the women who receive prenatal diagnoses of Down Syndrome that we really don't want people with disabilities living among us.
Charles Camosy's comments about that debate intrigued me. He was quoted as saying:
"Everyone deserves an equal chance to these organs, regardless of your mental capacity," said Charles Camosy, a professor of Christian Ethics at Fordham University.
Camosy said that while it's true that there are shortages of kidneys and other organs, the criteria used to make transplant decisions "should not ever devalue those that are mentally disabled."
"This is a growing movement that transcends liberal or conservative that says this kind of life, because it's so vulnerable, it deserves special protection," he said.
In the mix of considerations for organ transplants, he almost seems to be suggesting that we ought to give a preference to the most vulnerable. Is there any argument for a 'preferential option for the vulnerable' that might be as compelling as the preferential option for the poor? And, this leads me to a different question. Do Catholic hospitals incorporate a preferential option for the poor in their considerations about who should get any organ transplant (leaving aside the issue of disability)? Should they?
Posted by Elizabeth Schiltz on January 24, 2012 at 01:00 PM in Schiltz, Elizabeth | Permalink
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"This is a growing movement...that says this kind of life, because it's so vulnerable, it deserves special protection," he said.
Somewhere Nietzsche's head just exploded. Which is usually a reliable indicator you're on the right track.
Law has a pedagogical function, and I could envision situations in which it might be prudent to give special protection to the vulnerable. So yes, it's possible in principle. But it does not follow of necessity from the principles of the moral law.
Posted by: Matthew Polaris | Jan 24, 2012 1:16:52 PM
Archbishop Chaput: "These children with disabilities are not a burden; they’re a priceless gift to all of us. They’re a doorway to the real meaning of our humanity. . . . "
Thomas E. Reynolds (from Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality): "Acknowledging our shared human vulnerability can be an important route into building solidarity among disabled and non-disabled people, exposing the hollow norms of attractiveness, individuality, and productivity upon which our consumer-oriented culture is built. But it should not do so by romanticizing disability, concentrating solely on how non-disabled persons can learn theological and moral lessons from disabled persons."
Posted by: David Nickol | Jan 24, 2012 7:37:25 PM
Archbishop Chaput: "Raising a child with Down syndrome can be demanding. It always involves some degree of suffering. Parents grow up very fast. None of my friends who has a daughter or son with a serious disability is melodramatic, or self-conscious, or even especially pious about it. They speak about their special child with an unsentimental realism. It’s a realism flowing out of love – real love, the kind that forces its way through fear and suffering to a decision, finally, to surround the child with their heart and trust in the goodness of God. And that decision to trust, of course, demands not just real love, but also real courage."
No romanticizing there.
Posted by: S. Malone | Jan 25, 2012 4:40:12 AM
"No romanticizing there."
S. Malone,
I am not sure I agree. Triumphing over adversity is easily romanticized. But this is a very tough topic, and attempting to discuss it dispassionately tends to make people angry.
My point would be that the "most vulnerable" are not *better* than other people. They require more from us, and one of the ways we may be measured is how we meet their needs. But if a "preferential option for the vulnerable" is interpreted to mean that the mentally disabled are more deserving of things like kidney transplants than are merely average people or gifted people, I disagree.
Posted by: David Nickol | Jan 25, 2012 7:46:20 AM
