We may lose best doctors, nurses
By Dr Catherine Kavanagh, Lecturer, Mary Immaculate College
One of the things which people need to consider when deciding how to vote in the coming referendum is the issue of conscience in medicine, for both doctors and nurses.
Currently protections for conscience rights in Ireland are weak.
Conscience is the only thing that stands between the patient, client or citizen and doctors, lawyers or politicians who will often do whatever they can get away with.
One can legislate until the moon turns blue, but if the people who must follow the law are not committed to it, then… where there’s a law there’s a loophole.
To attack conscience in doctors and nurses is to say that we do not want people who care about their patients and their professional integrity, but only box-tickers, who will do what the law mandates, and no more. Who wants to be cared for by nurses who don’t care?
Current codes of medical ethics recognise the right to conscientious objection.
They add, however, that if one has a conscientious objection to providing a “service” (since when did serious medical treatment become merely a “service”?), one has to ensure that someone else will provide it.
This is absurd. Practically speaking, it could mean that you need not wield the scalpel yourself in an abortion, but you have to ensure that someone else will instead – so the baby dies anyhow.
Thus far, Ministers Harris, Zappone et al. have given no indication that if this legislation passes, they intend doing anything other than forcing doctors and nurses to comply with it, whatever conscience may tell them.
That may well force some of the best doctors and nurses out of the profession altogether, It will also mean that young people who care about unborn children will be actively discouraged from entering medicine or nursing.
Then too, we have many wonderful Filipina and other overseas nurses working in our hospitals, many of whom have strong pro-life convictions.
What will happen to them? Will we lose them to a jurisdiction which does respect conscience?
McAleese’s view too narrow
What can one say about Mary McAleese’s recent outburst, except that she’s wrong? Historically, the concerns with women’s rights and protections arose in Christian societies. Why is that?
The first ever female university professor was Prof. Maria Agnesi, She was appointed by Pope Benedict XIV to the chair of mathematics, natural philosophy and physics at The University of Bologna, one of the most prestigious of all.
That was in 1750, centuries before the Suffragettes had been invented.
The greatest impetus to the education of women came from female religious Orders, such as St. Angela Merici’s Ursulines and Mary Ward’s Sisters of Loreto, to name just two.
Florence Nightingale had an enormous admiration for the nursing Sisters whom she met in the Crimea, and in fact learnt a great deal from them… It goes on and on and on.
All these extraordinary women were inspired by their faith and their love for the Church: that Catholic Church which McAleese accuses of misogyny.
Being considerate in church
A few of my friends recently commented on the difficulty of finding a quiet spot to pray in their local church. This is a bit odd, since churches are primarily places for prayer.
In Catholic churches, the Blessed Sacrament, a unique Presence of God, is reserved, and this surely deserves reverence.
People always whispered, of course, but it seems that a trend has developed of people not simply whispering for a minute or two, but carrying on full-blown conversations out loud.
One poor girl had a particularly bruising experience: going into her local church to gather her wits following a disturbing incident, she found a few other parishioners enjoying a chat, and a loud chat at that.
She caught someone’s eye and gestured towards the altar. At that point, one woman became very angry, marched over to her, and shouted, “How dare you! This is our church!”
Now, with all due respect, but honestly… it’s not my church, or our church, any more than it’s my golf club or our railway station.
It’s everybody’s church, and people who want a bit of peace and quiet there are as entitled to have their wishes respected as anybody.
People go into churches to spend time with the Lord, to think, to summon up the courage for an interview, for example, or to pray about a family problem, or illness in the family, or just to catch their breath amidst the noise and the chaos of busy lives.
All this should be respected. Nor should the person wanting peace have to explain why. There are a lot of places to chat – coffee shops, community centres, etc., but not that many places where you can just sit in silence.
From a purely human point of view, a church is a public building, and in public places, there is a rule of thumb that if your conversation is intruding on the people around you because of its noisiness, well….it’s a good idea, and considerate, to turn the volume down a bit.
Currently protections for conscience rights in Ireland are weak.
Conscience is the only thing that stands between the patient, client or citizen and doctors, lawyers or politicians who will often do whatever they can get away with.
One can legislate until the moon turns blue, but if the people who must follow the law are not committed to it, then… where there’s a law there’s a loophole.
To attack conscience in doctors and nurses is to say that we do not want people who care about their patients and their professional integrity, but only box-tickers, who will do what the law mandates, and no more. Who wants to be cared for by nurses who don’t care?
Current codes of medical ethics recognise the right to conscientious objection.
They add, however, that if one has a conscientious objection to providing a “service” (since when did serious medical treatment become merely a “service”?), one has to ensure that someone else will provide it.
This is absurd. Practically speaking, it could mean that you need not wield the scalpel yourself in an abortion, but you have to ensure that someone else will instead – so the baby dies anyhow.
Thus far, Ministers Harris, Zappone et al. have given no indication that if this legislation passes, they intend doing anything other than forcing doctors and nurses to comply with it, whatever conscience may tell them.
That may well force some of the best doctors and nurses out of the profession altogether, It will also mean that young people who care about unborn children will be actively discouraged from entering medicine or nursing.
Then too, we have many wonderful Filipina and other overseas nurses working in our hospitals, many of whom have strong pro-life convictions.
What will happen to them? Will we lose them to a jurisdiction which does respect conscience?
McAleese’s view too narrow
What can one say about Mary McAleese’s recent outburst, except that she’s wrong? Historically, the concerns with women’s rights and protections arose in Christian societies. Why is that?
The first ever female university professor was Prof. Maria Agnesi, She was appointed by Pope Benedict XIV to the chair of mathematics, natural philosophy and physics at The University of Bologna, one of the most prestigious of all.
That was in 1750, centuries before the Suffragettes had been invented.
The greatest impetus to the education of women came from female religious Orders, such as St. Angela Merici’s Ursulines and Mary Ward’s Sisters of Loreto, to name just two.
Florence Nightingale had an enormous admiration for the nursing Sisters whom she met in the Crimea, and in fact learnt a great deal from them… It goes on and on and on.
All these extraordinary women were inspired by their faith and their love for the Church: that Catholic Church which McAleese accuses of misogyny.
Being considerate in church
A few of my friends recently commented on the difficulty of finding a quiet spot to pray in their local church. This is a bit odd, since churches are primarily places for prayer.
In Catholic churches, the Blessed Sacrament, a unique Presence of God, is reserved, and this surely deserves reverence.
People always whispered, of course, but it seems that a trend has developed of people not simply whispering for a minute or two, but carrying on full-blown conversations out loud.
One poor girl had a particularly bruising experience: going into her local church to gather her wits following a disturbing incident, she found a few other parishioners enjoying a chat, and a loud chat at that.
She caught someone’s eye and gestured towards the altar. At that point, one woman became very angry, marched over to her, and shouted, “How dare you! This is our church!”
Now, with all due respect, but honestly… it’s not my church, or our church, any more than it’s my golf club or our railway station.
It’s everybody’s church, and people who want a bit of peace and quiet there are as entitled to have their wishes respected as anybody.
People go into churches to spend time with the Lord, to think, to summon up the courage for an interview, for example, or to pray about a family problem, or illness in the family, or just to catch their breath amidst the noise and the chaos of busy lives.
All this should be respected. Nor should the person wanting peace have to explain why. There are a lot of places to chat – coffee shops, community centres, etc., but not that many places where you can just sit in silence.
From a purely human point of view, a church is a public building, and in public places, there is a rule of thumb that if your conversation is intruding on the people around you because of its noisiness, well….it’s a good idea, and considerate, to turn the volume down a bit.
