A “Both-And” Way of Dying

Writing in the English Catholic weekly The Tablet , Catholic bioethicist David Albert Jones discusses the  U.K.’s General Medical Council’s new guidelines for treating dying patients.  He notes that:

A Catholic understanding of good end-of-life care is “both-and”: both upholding the sanctity of life and accepting the inevitability of death. Some people may be more concerned about the danger that patients may be neglected or may fail to get the treatment or care they need. Others may worry more about modern medicine being over-zealous and imposing unwanted, unnecessary and burdensome treatment. The Catholic approach is to recognise both dangers and guard people from both kinds of harm.

See also his  What the Church Really Thinks correcting the ignorance of public figures about the Catholic understanding of medical research, and his An Ethical Look at Human-Animal Embryos . My friend Anne Barbeau Gardiner reviewed his The Soul of the Embryo in Touchstone , and another review can be found here .