Hanford Article: Pastor and Bioethics

Psychology - Counseling

"the Pastor and Bioethics"

Ethics in health care often presents difficulty for pastors. Common professional struggles are experienced by pastoral and health professionals. There are four specific medical issues that often result in issues for pastors. These include: physician-assisted death or euthanasia, complementary or alternative treatments, the exercise of consent to medical procedures by patients or parishioners and families, and the crucial need for the donation of vital organs to save lives. Entrenched within all four of these issues, there is an important religious concern which necessitates the pastor's capability (Hanford, 2006).

Most transplantable organs come from people who have been killed in accidents that result in brain death but leave vital organs undamaged. Physicians are justifiably hesitant to approach family members at the worst moment of their lives to ask them to donate a loved one's organs. Therefore, many hospitals are turning to ministers, priests, rabbis and social workers to request organ donations from grieving families. Asking a grieving family to donate a loved one's organs is not an easy matter. The task requires a pastoral coalition that is based on trust, faith and risking. One must be person oriented, empathic and able to act in response to the feelings of the client or family (Moran, n.d.).

In the article "The pastor and bioethics," Hanford says that organ donation is often blocked because the family of a potential donor has not been informed of the patient's decision to donate. He suggests a list of guidelines that should be put into practice. If the guidelines are followed Hanford believes that malpractice suits would be less likely. In his discussion Hanford mentions the ethical considerations of both duty and rights. He says that both patients and practitioners have rights set down by the Patient's Bill of Rights of 1972. This bill implies correlate duties of practitioners such as where patients have rights to information then practitioners have duties to disclose or give the information for a meaningful transparent consent.

In his discussion of organ donation Hanford overlooks the ethical traditions of divine command, self-interest and consequences. No where in the article does he mention any of these. His treatment would be stronger and more scholarly if he had included these other ethical traditions into his discussion. It would have been nice to have his argument for organ donation backed up with some scripture that showed how he came to the conclusion that there exists a theological notion that our lives are gifts from God and that people would be expressing their love by giving their vital organs as gifts. There is a concern within the Christian community about the propriety of donating and implanting organs. This issue is not explicitly addressed in the Bible, but an answer can be found that is based on scriptural principles by considering what is written and what is not written in the Bible (Pastoral Letter on Organ Donation & Transplantation, 2012). Using the approach of providing scripture and examples would be very beneficial to those who are on the fence as to whether organ donation is the right thing to do or not.