Brave Medical Practices

By Author: Johnson Philip
Total Articles: 90
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Natural science and technology has made enormous progress in the past few centuries, and this has been possible only because of experimentation. Men everywhere, in their quest to understand the world better, have subjected every conceivable process to experimentation and possible modification. This has brought us numerous blessings in the form of modern means of mass production, faster communication, better medicine, and better mass transportation. However, careless use of science and technology has brought a number of curses also many of which manifest in the form of pollution. Many kinds of experimentation in areas which are ethically doubtful or completely wrong have also brought similar problems, and they are only going to increase with time.

The products of technology breakthroughs often promise rich financial rewards in certain fields of research and this promise of pot of gold, coupled with the present day greed for money has made many researchers to overlook all kinds of moral obligation. At the same time, man is becoming more and more daring to perform experiments which he perceives as doubtful or wrong ...
... because this adventure gives an expression to his rebellion against God.

Several dozen types of medical researches come in the category cited above, where the ethics of all of it becomes very important. However, when such ethically doubtful or wrong experiments become the routine practice in any medical establishment, then even the Christians serving there tend to take it all so mechanically that they just overlook or forget the ethical side of it.

It has been widely reported in popular as well as medical publications that presently abortion is being performed all over the world for the most trivial reason. This procedure terminates the life of a person created in the image of God, but it has become such a part of many medical personnel that they just do not pause to think what they are doing. This attitude has given rise to another experimentation on live aborted fetuses | This is a cruel condemnable practice, but reportedly it is taking place all over the world. They are using unwanted but lives babies to run all kinds of tests : the effect of chemicals, transplantation, and almost anything which one can conceive. Some researchers even cut away the body part of these live bodies for harvesting their cells or for using the organs. Many even do not care to anesthetize them, adding cruelty to the murder of an infant.

It is understood that some of the best cosmetics sold around the world contain cells extracted from the tender bodies of aborted babies.

God has created man in His own image, and in spite of man's fall he carried that image in himself. Therefore man is different from all animals. A baby, even at the youngest stage, is different from animals in kind. It is a member of mankind and no one except a court of law can order a life terminated.

Christians should therefore, never become an active party either in terminating a pregnancy or in conducting experiments on an aborted baby. They may never be able to stop such activities which go on in their institutions, and thus they might be constrained to become a passive party to it all, they should try their best to avoid active involvement.

Some might argue that there is nothing wrong with such experimentation because no one wants those babies anyway; they would have died sooner or latter. Therefore what is the harm if they are used for something which might benefit the whole of mankind. This argument depends upon a number of false arguments - - the chief being that no one wants the baby. There are many couples who might want to adopt the child if given a chance. Also, there is no child who God does not love. In fact, Christians should not contribute their energy to movements which divide children into wanted and unwanted categories.

Second, arguing does not conform to Christian ethics. We do not evaluate the worth of a person or activity purely on the basis of some assumed worth. Rather, the appropriateness of every activity is judged on the basis of what the word of God would say about it. In contrast to it something is accepted purely on the basis of its value to a great number of people, the people will soon find justification for even the most fallen and rotten activity.

Christians cannot stop all the unethical activities going around them, and they are surely not called to do that. However, they can try their best to detach themselves from active involvement. This might not be east because standing for one's conviction demands a lot of cost.
Dr. Johnson C. Philip is a scientist and an acknowledged blogging guru having a worldwide following.