From an address by Most Rev Anthony Fisher OP: Launch of Catholic Bioethics for a New Millennium, University of Notre Dame Australia Sydney, Tuesday 31 January 2012
I wrote my first book while I was an undergraduate at the University of Sydney, an institution now best known for being near the University of Notre Dame. I was very involved in the pro-life movement at that time.
The book was on Abortion in Australia and I have been somewhat type-cast ever since: most of my publications have ended up being in the area of bioethics. I never dreamed where such pursuits might take me! Since then the questions in health ethics have only multiplied, such as:
- When do people begin and how would we know?
- What’s all the fuss about stem-cells and are there more and less ethical ways to achieve therapies?
- Is abortion a new form of eugenics? Who should live and who should die on the basis on their genes or wantedness, who decides and in whose interests?
- Are organ transplants a good thing or do they kill the donors? How should we think of the relationship between donor, recipient, families and community?
- Do unresponsive patients still matter and should we keep feeding them, even artificially?
- Why are Christians so hung up about killing patients, even those who are already at a very low ebb or who want to die?
- What is the role of a Catholic healthcare institution in today’s world and how can it protect its Catholic identity and ethical integrity in the face of all the pressures?
- How about the healthcare professional? What is their vocation and when may they cooperate in the morally dubious choices of an institution or other professionals?
- What sorts of laws and policies should we make in this area and are pro-life politicians able to vote for ‘bad but better’ laws?
