Choice: A Travesty of Religion

Here's my column on what I consider to be a travesty: religious people supporting the pro-choice agenda. Recently, our medical school hosted a symposium on "Religion and Reproductive Choice." Click here for my thoughts regarding this event.

My Essay on the Pro-choice vs. Pro-life philosophies

Abortion's victims

By: Patrick Beeman

Posted: 4/12/07

Nothing is so tragic as abortion. The strident cries of pro-choice activists cannot silence the effete screams of the baby suffering at the hands of an abortionist. Abortion is a polite and civilized genocide. In the political and moral rhetoric, the pro-life cause has conceded much. Talk to anyone, and you will hear the debate framed in terms of "pro-choice" versus "pro-life." But the innocuous term "choice" does no justice to the grim reality of elective abortion. For this reason, I sympathize with those who insist on calling the pro-choice cause "anti-life" or "pro-death." However, the rules of intellectual debate demand we call our opponents by what they want to be called. Persuading them to believe their self-claimed appellation is wrongheaded is another matter and more important is persuading them that their cause is wrongheaded.

I think it's fair to assume no one wants to kill babies. It is a perverted barbarism that has as its goal the destruction of helpless innocents. This is the reason pro-abortion people want to be called pro-choice. This removes the moral locus from the death of a human being to the putative "choice" of an articulate and autonomous mother. However, the rhetoric and arguments often advanced by the pro-choice camp do not seem to hint at anything more profound than the following: 1) people should be encouraged and free to have sex on any terms, no matter what the cost, and 2) human life is a dispensable and destructible thing subservient to the will of those who, to borrow Chesterton, "happen to be walking about." The pro-choice philosophy includes no notion of moral responsibility or heroism, supererogation or self-sacrifice. At bottom, its first principle is pleasure for pleasure's sake.

It's no wonder pro-choice activists make little attempt to hide their efforts to de-sacrilize, de-personalize, instrumentalize, genitalize and animalize (yes, I made up those words) human sexuality. Yet they accuse the Church of being "obsessed with sex" and tell her to "stay out of people's bedrooms." Their shrill voices succeed only in proving the opposite: they are the obsessed. Their whole worldview is defined by a faulty understanding of sexuality wedded (pardon the pun) to a rebellious notion of human freedom.

They cry, to paraphrase the Gospels, "We have no king but Pleasure." Their concept of freedom does not say that every person has a right to do what she wants with her life but rather a person's choice determines what is good. This, my friends, is autonomy unrestrained by reason and commonsense. And it is one of the most insidious forces at work in medicine, law and politics.

Note my following words with careful precision: pragmatically, the aforementioned worldview makes out pro-choice arguments and protestations to be so many thinly veiled expressions of a vicious desire to maintain a world that permits and even encourages the killing of unborn babies. The express position of the pro-choice philosophy is compassion solely for the mother. But compassion is morally neutral and it can be misguided and dangerous when not guided by a proper understanding of the good for human life.

On the other hand - the boisterous exclamations of the pro-choice lobby notwithstanding - the pro-life philosophy's express position is compassion for both mother and child. And it is a compassion motivated by a genuine love for both woman and child, created equal in the "image and likeness of God."

Unfortunately, arguments aren't very convincing, even when they are logically sound. There is an element of the human heart not persuaded by reason alone. As Pascal observed, "The heart has its reasons, which reason knows not." To this end, groups such as the Genocide Awareness Project, couple graphic images of abortion to their arguments supporting the pro-life worldview. This is meant to appeal to the pathos of pro-choice and pro-life alike. Few of the pro-choice crowd will ever be convinced by logical argument, and few pro-lifers will be roused to action by the same, but no one can argue with the pitiable sight of a helpless innocent maimed and dismembered by the overweening conclusions and practicalities of the pro-choice philosophy. After all, as a "liberal" - as if massacring innocents could have anything to do with the promotion of authentic freedom - shibboleth goes, the GAP is merely "speaking truth to power." For my birthday, on the first of these two days, why not come express your solidarity with these tiny victims and their defenders? GAP will be here April 18-19.

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© Copyright 2007 Independent Collegian

IC Column On Easter

Easter renews faith

By: Patrick Beeman

Posted: 4/5/07

Christianity is alive and well. No better is this seen than today, Maundy Thursday, as most of the world's two billion Christians countdown the final days of Lent to welcome the unspeakable joy of Easter. The Easter Triduum begins on Holy (Maundy) Thursday, continues with Good Friday, and culminates with the Feast of Feasts, this Saturday night's Easter Vigil, in which, as the Catechism teaches, "the mystery of the Resurrection, in which Christ crushed death, permeates with its powerful energy our old time, until all is subject to him."

Easter is more than simply the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox (this is how the date of Easter has been determined ever since the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.). It is certainly more than a bunny as well. For all Christians, but most especially the liturgically-minded Catholic Christian, Easter is a long-awaited and welcome vivification of "our old time" by this special feast of the mystery of Christ's suffering, death and resurrection - that is the Paschal Mystery, which we re-celebrate each year.

The Easter Mystery makes all things new once again, and Christ comes alive in the hearts of his people as new Christians are welcomed into the Church through the gift of Baptism, separated Christians enter into and are welcomed by the Church that Christ founded, and all Christians - new and old - renew their baptismal promises, reject Satan and open themselves to Christ's Redemption (this all usually occurs during the Easter Vigil, on Holy Saturday).

Easter is my favorite day of the year. To see the joy on the faces of the newly baptized and those Christians who have chosen to enter the Church is exhilarating. One can tell they are supremely happy in that moment, like the weight of the world's sin and agony is lifted from their burdened hearts by God's consuming love. And actually that is kind of what happens. I know; I am a convert.

The funny thing is all of us converts describe a unique and ineffable joy attendant upon our entrance into the Church, something like coming home or finding true happiness. The long list of Catholic converts - St. Augustine of Hippo, Gerard Manley Hopkins, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jacques Maritain, Walker Percy, Oscar Wilde (a deathbed conversion, but a convincingly authentic one nonetheless), G.E.M. Anscombe, G.K. Chesterton and Alasdair MacIntyre (a Scotsman, but that's OK) - attests to the kind of great intellectual, aesthetic or literary genius that finds a home within the Church.

Yet some people say Catholicism is for the unenlightened. Well sure, if by "enlightenment" you mean a rejection of great literature, music, philosophy, theology, art and all the best of Western culture. No, Catholicism is, without being pretentious or recondite, all at once a rigorous theology for those with the minds to comprehend it, a persuasive worldview for those with the wills to believe it, a beautiful aesthetic for those with sensitive and refined imaginations, and above all, the way to a vibrant relationship with God for those with simple faith and child-like hearts: pauper and polymath alike.

I believe Catholicism because it is true, which is the only good reason for believing anything. What is sad to me is so many people, even Catholics, are indifferent to the coming Easter joy. They are of the "different strokes for different folks" type.

A consideration of truth-claims never enters into their thoughts about religion. Yet religion itself makes demanding claims of truth. It really does make a difference to Christianity whether Christ resurrected on Easter. To deny this is to delude yourself.

Pope Benedict XVI invites us to consider, "how a Christianity grown weary of faith has abandoned the Lord. The great ideologies and the banal existence of those who, no longer believing anything, simply drift through life, have built a new and worse paganism, which in its attempt to do away with God once and for all, has ended up doing away with man."

One way you, O Christian, can reclaim your faith, the dignity of man and affirm the reality of God's love, is to embrace the mystery of Easter these next three days. I'll see you at Mass.

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© Copyright 2007 Independent Collegian (www.independentcollegian.com)

Correspondence Between Me and Dr. W

His encouraging Response (Uberstudent? That was nice).

Patrick:

While stumbling around in the dark, a minor will accidentally strike gold.

I have been pontificating (please excuse this lapse of manners) for so long that the steady diet of science majors that have been

feeding our medical school will lead us down many wrong paths, and here, under my nose, is the uberstudent I have been seeking. (I was a mere

English major. You, on the other hand, may have just what we need to deal with the main problems of medicine today.)

More later. It is sad to think that you have to translate your thoughts so much to get students to read them. that is scary.

I definitely do not think Darwin is a neo-Darwinist. I could be wrong. I don't have your intellect.

More later.

Dr. W,

My response

Dr. W.,

I was a bit disoriented by parts of your e-mail, but for what it is worth, I will attempt to address the salient points of your missive. First a few rhetorical issues must be noted.

Since its number is so large, my primary audience is the undergraduate community at UT. For my own part, I try to write as much for medical students and the few faculty who read my column as I can (thank you for your readership). As you've noticed most of the columnists deal with tripe of the most inane sort. I tend to tackle the 'bigger issues' because a college newspaper is one of the few places that still exist where something like a public intellectual can express philosophical and theological ideas freely and stimulate discussion among members of his audience or fellow columnists.

Secondly, I majored in philosophy and theology and hold a Master's degree in the former. I came to medicine during my solitary senior year of college and completed the premed requirements while studying for my M.A. Accordingly, when I address philosophical or theological issues, I tend to know more about and comment upon the trends in academia bearing on these two venerable disciplines.

Hence, my comment about the general trend in academia to deny truth's existence. This can be seen most readily in the tired philosophies of postmodernism and deconstruction propounded by the likes of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and other 'continental' types. On your end, I agree and am glad that you are of the opinion that truth is what we are seeking. From my end, I believe this does demand that there is an ultimate Truth which can be found. No natural desire can be in vain, argued St. Thomas Aquinas and the other Schoolmen. In fact this is the whole point of philosophical realism, to which I think you alluded, namely that truth or reality is something that we discover not something that we subjectively impose on the world as in Kant or the German Idealists.

Another rhetorical point, I must be hyperbolic and superficial on some points or no undergraduate will read my column. I do not mean to write inflammatorily but the desire to evoke a reaction sometimes does creep in as I set my fingers to the keyboard. Along with this, my columns do not necessarily represent my most well thought or articulated view on a given matter, just one that would stimulate discussion and offer an alternative to much of the secularist philosophy that predominates our university (this is sad, for you will remember, the university is a Catholic invention).

I do not take my columns as seriously as my scholarly work. For instance, I am giving a paper at the University of Toledo's Philosophy, Medicine, and Diversity conference on April 21. It is entitled "Getting Our Priorities Straight or Which Comes First the Catholic or the Physician." Moreover much more seriously do I take my professional writing for publications such as This Rock (a magazine of Catholic theology/philosophy), and hopefully soon America and First Things, both of which have pending submissions. That being said, I do try to choose my words extremely carefully and much of what I say is nuanced. I learned to be precise from reading the Great Books and studying Latin and Greek.

On to more serious points which do not as much concern the art of persuasion. Neo-Darwinism is manifestly an atheistic philosophy masquerading as science. One has only to think of the titles of Richard Dawkins' most recent works "The God Delusion" or "The Blind Watchmaker." These are just puerile polemics with very little philosophical justification or legwork. I mean, scientists get angry when the Southern Baptist theologian denounces evolution, shouldn't the biologist dabbling in philosophy and theologically pontificating on the idea that there is no God and therefore no need of a pontiff at least consider that he is overstepping his professional competence by writing on these matters?

To be fair, even the six-day literal creationist, fundamentalist with a southern drawl, if he is a doctor, is going to use the latest antibiotics despite his worldview or convictions. No doubt you were overstating the case for rhetorical effect, but isn't that just kind of a wee bit ad hominem?

I am not a creationist, but I do believe in creation. I believe in evolution but I am not an evolutionist like Dawkins or others who use a scientific theory to construct their entire view of reality and frame the moral universe of their lives. You've no doubt heard of Francis Collins, arguably one of today's best scientists and an evangelical to boot. His take on evolution I think is more representative of Christian intellectuals like myself. To this end please consult the following by Stephen M. Barr whose nuanced view of evolutionary theory closely approximates my own. The first is the "Miracle of Evolution" the second is "theology for Physicists" and the third is "The Design of Evolution." You would probably really enjoy the last one.

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=87

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=187

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=238

Is belief in God a matter of faith, you ask? Yes and no. For some it is. For others it is not. Through reason one can come to an understanding, albeit limited, of God's existence and some of his attributes. Faith, to be sure, completes the picture painted by reason. Most persons likely do just believe in God on faith, and that's okay. Being a philosopher or a good logician is not for everyone, but most religions think that being a follower of the Deity is. But, as John Paul II observed in Fides et Ration, "Faith and Reason are like the two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth-in a word, to know himself-so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves." That's my view in short on the relation between the two.

Ah what else. O yes. In my defense, the first day of school Dr. Gold said something to the effect that Evidence-Based Medicine would be a part of our curriculum beginning with the first year. While I recognize that this cannot be entirely true because we don't actually have any responsibility for prescribing medications, implementing treatments, etc., my comment was not directed to this. I meant it more in the sense of a reductio ad absurdum argument. If truth doesn't exist then there is no "right" treatment for a given disease, therefore, such a doc would practice a "do-whatever-I-feel-like-at-the-moment" brand of medicine. Hyperbole as I said before.

Finally, you wrote, "I agree that Columbus, Galileo and the earth is round does not refute, or deny God. it more or less describes human limitation, and progress. where are we going, and why are we going? those are the questions, but no one has the answer in this dimension. we can always hope, however, and have faith, that we will eventually get there." (sic)

To the questions of where and why, most people find an answer in religious faith, so the burden of proof remains on the person who opposes religious belief to prove that the latter is absurd. That's not going to happen. So in my opinion we are stuck searching for the Truth, and having found it, we are to make sure our reasons are good and live our lives according to it, scrutinizing the inconsistencies in our thought but always being open to faith, because God is the ultimate source of Truth which comes to man through faith and reason, neither of which can contradict the other, for truth cannot contradict truth, and God cannot contradict himself. That's all I've got. Thanks

Best Regards,

Patrick C. Beeman
University of Toledo
College of Medicine

P.S. Please read my column tomorrow, it's on religious faith and Easter.

HIS First Message (posted just as he wrote it)

after being a faculty member in the medical school for the past 20 plus years, I was interested in your assertion that there is a trend to deny truth's existence. really? I thouught truth is what we are seeking? some of your arguments seem to imply that some major philosophical truth is an endpoint that a realist must accept (on faith?), rather than question, or inch our way toward the light.

or that there is a trend or fashion of materialistic Neo-Darwinism evolutionary theory that motivates us. if scientists and non-scientists took the important question as seriouusly as Darwin did, we would be better off. He was very concerned, as a religious man, of how God conceived the universe. As a physician who may not believe ini evolution, will you withhold newer antibiotics from those patients whose Staph has evolved a resistance to an older antibiotic? or not use the latest treatment for TB since evolution does not exist. will you offer your patients a choice?

I personally have no problem with evolution. why should man in her/his arrogance assume that the divine power did not use evolution as one of the tools to create? where does an understanding of evolution lead to assuming that Catholicism or Christianity of Judaism is for buffoons? an awful lot of scientists who believe in the fossle record have belief in a supreme being. and some dont. it is a matter of faith, after all, isnt it?

and where have you understood that some doctors practice a do-whatever-I-feel-like brand of medicine? is that what you suspect, after 6 months of medical school? I did not realize that evidence based medicine is part of the first year curriculum.

I agree that Columbus, Galileo and the earth is round does not refute, or deny God. it more or less describes human limitation, and progress. where are we going, and why are we going? those are the questions, but no one has the answer in this dimension. we can always hope, however, and have faith, that we will eventually get there.

IC Column: On the Existence of Truth

This Column provoked an interesting correspondence with the chair of a department at my school. See above for the correspondence after reading this.

Always for the truth

By: Patrick Beeman

Posted: 3/29/07

There are few things more absurd than advancing the truth-claim "there is no truth." The self-referential inconsistency of such a notion is not difficult to grasp, but it is not for that reason any less popular.

Undergraduates, being suggestible creatures, heteronymously live at the behest of a great number of forces. University administrators mandate which classes to take at which time and where, professors say what to believe, parents insist on good grades and a "useful" (I shudder at this word's application to the university) major for financial support. Such suggestibility, however, begets a certain amount of unreflective belief.

Consider a few diverse examples. Do you know anyone who believes in God, the liceity of abortion or the injustice of the Iraq War (these people are almost as bad as the pro-abortion group) who when pressed to defend their beliefs cannot adduce a single logically compelling reason? For instance, at this stage your answers should not be "because the Bible says so" or "women have rights" (well what about female fetuses?) or holding a sign bearing the words "Troops out now!" (Give me a break).

Or consider this scene: someone says, "I don't believe in God." And you ask why not. He responds, like one of the character's in C.S. Lewis's Pilgrim's Regress, "Christopher Columbus, Galileo, the earth is round, invention of printing, gunpowder, [you believe in God] because you do not have the benefits of scientific training." Can anyone say non-sequitur? This no more disproves God's existence than closing your eyes disproves yours. It simply doesn't follow.

The issue here betrays a crisis of reality. Most famously, it was stated in the words of Pontius Pilate who, in response to Jesus' statement that all who belong to the truth listen to Him, asked, "What is truth?" Indeed.

The moribund but stubborn trend in academia and among the intelligentsia has been to deny truth's existence. That is, to make the following logical proposition: it is true that there is no truth. Wow! And these supposedly clever people are teaching us bioethics, religion, literature, and science. These are not unimportant subjects like modern art or sociology about which we can be cavalier.

Yet, so it goes. Undergraduates eagerly jump on the bandwagon of whatever intellectual fashion is in ascendancy among their peers and professors. The materialist presuppositions of Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory are the latest "scientific" dogma? Sweet, count me in on that one. The evangelical or Catholic Christianity of my parents is for buffoons? Too bad for my parents. There is no truth? Why, I believe that is true.

You see the problem? One has to take a stand on issues and not just accept simpliciter what professors or your friends believe. Recently, someone wrote a provocative little piece on the idea that the search for truth never ends. Well, yes, not until you find it. If the search for truth is a journey, it must have a destination, a goal. Questions demand answers. Those who describe themselves as being on a never-ending "journey to discover truth" are by definition lost. The road they're traveling leads, by their own admission, nowhere.

Truly one should never become complacent in one's beliefs. So you believe in God? Fine. The truth of God's existence is your conclusion, but don't ever stop searching for premises to support that conclusion. Live like He does, and let that truth vivify your intellectual pursuits and all other aspects of your life. Don't let the proposition become banal, for surely it is the most important issue of all.

So, for all you Pontius Pilates out there, consider Aristotle's observation, "If a man says of what is that it is or of what is not that it is not, he speaks the truth." So then, truth is simply "telling it like it is."

Truth is the conformity of mind to reality. Call me a rube, but I'm sure glad I believe what is true. I think my future patients will also be glad that I'm not a relativist. "What are we gonna do about my cancer, Doc?" "I dunno, I don't want to jump to any hasty conclusions about the existence of truth [i.e. the best medicine] - let's just do nothing and see what happens."

Lastly, I'm sure my lawyer will be glad when I tell him that I practice medicine according to the truth and not from the perspective of an ever-tortuous, do-whatever-I-feel-like-at-the-moment perspective. I'm sure that will make his job a bit easier. Semper pro Veritate.

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© Copyright 2007 Independent Collegian (www.independentcollegian.com)

IC Column: Grey's Anatomy Some of What Medicine Is

'Grey's Anatomy:' some of what medicine is

By: Patrick Beeman

Posted: 3/22/07

OK. Perhaps my last column on "Grey's Anatomy" was a bit harsh. I was challenged to find some good in the show, and I never turn down a challenge (which is part of the reason I am now in medical school). At any rate, after scouring through too many "Grey's" episodes, I found one beacon of light within the drama's benighted moral universe.

In one episode, the intern George O'Malley is wrestling with his father's illness and death. In a conversation with the attending cardiothoracic surgeon Preston Burke, George cries out to his friend for guidance on what to do about his father. He presses Burke for the scientifically best course of treatment for his father's illness. Burke hesitates and says, "I don't have any more medicine for you. Now, it's about faith." Incredulous, George bursts out "but we're men of science."

"In my experience, science is not enough, O'Malley," Burke retorts, "but if you want me to hope with you and send up a prayer, that is something I'd be happy to do." And there you have it: "Grey's Anatomy's" single, solitary, sole expression of something profound. But then again, if one speaks enough, he's bound to hit upon something of depth at one point or another. By golly, I'll even admit that on that principle gunners ask good questions sometimes.

At any rate, my point in bringing this scene to your attention is to highlight the importance of recognizing the limitations of science and medicine. You see, medicine is about human life. This is not some feel-good nicety we doctors-in-training tell ourselves in order to justify the unconscionable salaries some of us desire. Rather, this goes to the heart of medicine's raison d'etre. That may sound pedantic, but it is no less true for that reason.

Medicine is an inherently moral enterprise that, nevertheless, needs the guiding power of ethics in order to stay true to its mission to comfort, cure and heal the sick without consideration for their social status, ability to pay or whatever; in short, to defend life in all its forms from conception to natural death. Medicine can only "take you so far," as it were. But when it comes to the big questions the sick person asks as he faces the horror of disease, suffering and even death, the answers are to be found outside the realms of scientific enquiry and inside the properly human part of man. And most fundamentally, man is a religious creature who finds his fulfillment only in something outside himself: namely, in God.

Is it any wonder, then, why the sick are often so much closer to God than the healthy? The comfort and material success of the wealthy and psychologically content are ingredients in a recipe for complacency. The logic goes: why worry about God, if I can meet my needs on my own? But when the stability of life is pulled out from under a person by the malicious hands of sickness, one sees his radical dependence on something greater than himself. He learns that his life is not his own, and his destiny is inextricably bound to something higher. Here's a lesson we all could learn: suffering, though not something to be sought in itself (that would be masochism), nevertheless has redemptive value. However, it is up to the person suffering to give it such value.

And the rest of us who are confronted with the suffering of others? Our recourse is not only in the fallibility of the medical profession, as "Grey's" taught us this one time. It is also in hope and prayer. So, let us hope and pray that medicine will humbly recognize its limitations in answering questions pertaining to life's meaning and abandon the pompous support of so-called mercy killing, abortion, embryonic stem cell research and the like.

I've got no more medicine for you now. But if you want me to offer up some hope and a prayer to end the suffering of the unborn, the sick, and the dying, that's something I'd be happy to do.

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© Copyright 2007 Independent Collegian (www.independentcollegian.com)

L'âme existe

The soul does exist. Despite the commonplace phenomenon whereby medical professionals ignore this question altogether or adopt some form of crude reductionism such as that tiredly and continually advanced by one of my professors, "all aspects of what we call personhood are derived from the activity of the neocortex," the soul does exist. (As an aside: the neocortex is a part of the brain associated with conscious functions, as opposed to more "primitive" actions like breathing, temperature regulation, etc.)

In class one day we took a survey which asked two questions. I pray that this is not representative of the wider medical community, but here you have it.


First question: "All aspects of personhood can be attributed to the activity of the cerebral cortex."
a) True
b) False
c) not sure

Over 50% of my classmates marked 'True.' Practically what this means is that people have either a grossly impoverished view of personhood or they are die hard materialists with a penchant for defining personhood functionally rather than formally (i.e. a human person is anyone who is born of human parents). This is not good. For the answer to the next question follows closely after the first.

Second question: "The definition of death should..."
a) only include the cessation of heart and lung function
b) be broadened to include inactivity of the neocortex (i.e. the so-called peristent-vegetative state)
c) not sure

70%. Yes you read that correctly, 70% of my fellow would-be doctors picked b) to my utter horrow and amazement. Still, I am confident not one of those 70% could adduce a meaningfully objective definition of death. That is, death is a the irreversible disintegration of the organism. Quite simple, that. Yet, beware for 70% of my classmates would be willing to harvest a person's organ's who was, like Terry Schiavo, in a peristent-vegetative state.

Note that answer b) is not one of the accepted definitions of "brain death," a subject which is still somewhat controversial even in the Catholic world. From my limited understanding, and I would defer to the Magisterium without a wink, brain death including irreversible loss of all brain function including the activity of the midbrain is a valid definition of death. Still there are those orthodox Catholic ethicists and physicians like Dr. Alan Shewmon, himself a pediatric neurologist, who oppose the use of the term and practice of declaring someone "brain dead." But I digress.

No, answer b) takes the extremely presumptuous view that people who do not appear to communicate (i.e. they cannot tell us whether or not they have any conscious activity or not) are in fact dead. This is merely euthanasia by another name. How do we know that these people are, in the experssed sentiments of Dr. Shewmon and William May, just in an "extremely locked-in state" whereby they are conscious but unable to express themselves consciously. The practical conclusions of such a state are horrifying. Just consider what it would be to be the patient in that situation.

This all comes down to the materialistic presuppositions of psychobiologists, who balk at even the suggestion that there might be something more to human persons than gray matter.

I do not have the time to elaborate further, but for the Catholic and indeed the entire history of Western thought, there exists a principal beyond matter, called the soul or mind, which is spiritual in nature and accounts for the uniquely human attributes of rationality and volition. This I maintain is the ultimate integrating and, pardon the pun, animating principle of the human body from which our embodied personhood ultimately derives. Anything less is crude materialism and incompatible with even the broadest religious understanding of the human person.

New IC column on the ends of medicine

Check out my latest column which only tangentially considers television doctors but really argues for a return to the medical profession's sacred obligation to heal and all that it entails.

http://media.www.independentcollegian.com/media/storage/paper678/news/2007/03/22/Forum/greys.Anatomy.Some.Of.What.Medicine.Is-2786801.shtml?mkey=2450709

IC Column I forgot to put up: De Nomina

More than just a name

By: Patrick Beeman

Posted: 2/22/07

I'm sitting at my computer hours before my wife and I head to the hospital for the birth of our baby boy. Medicine gives us the miraculous possibility of having at will, which is induced by administering Oxytocin, the hormone normally responsible for the process. I would tell you our son's name, but there is a problem: he doesn't have one yet. In fact, it is somewhat possible he will make his debut nameless, wandering about the world the first few days of his life nameless.

It's a familiar story admittedly. My daughter, Evangeline, (we call her Evvy) was simply known as "Baby Girl" for three days before a certain Agent Smith from the Bureau of Vital Statistics threatened me with imprisonment and a stint in Siberia unless I named the tiny miracle of a human being who captured my heart and continues to capture my time and love. The thing is, my wife and I can't agree on a name.

I see a person's name and the process which goes into deciding it as an incommunicably important event, into which should go much reflection, serious thought, and not a little prayer. Accordingly, I've done all three and more. Guided by what is indubitably the undeniable hand of Providence (kind of like Moses and the burning bush, but with shoes on and not quite as hot), I have been utterly convinced that I should name my son Augustine.

Why?

Saint Augustine was born in 354 A.D., the son of a certain well-to-do Roman named Patrick. See the connection? He is without question the single most important theologian and Christian philosopher that the West has ever seen (he beats Saint Thomas Aquinas only because he preceded him).

This goes for Christians and non-Christians alike; Augustine was the great theoretician of free will, grace, sacraments, authority, conversion, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the author of the first ever autobiography and my personal favorite saint. In naming my son Augustine, I would give him the gift of an erudite and unequivocal identity - and a patron by which to model his life.

He would stand out as an intellectual, contemplative Westerner and heir to the legacy of one of the greatest minds this world has ever known. And what is most important, to well-educated people and others familiar with the "Doctor Gratiae's" story, my son would be identifiable as a Catholic Christian, "solo nomine," to modify a Protestant theological principle.

This brings me to names in general.

When you name something, as Aristotle observed so long ago, you "say what it is." A name is a kind of definition whereby you state the essence of the thing named. In naming, you give someone an ideal to live up to, an identity, sometimes a patron, and a way of presenting himself to and being known by the world. Naming my son Augustine is like passing on the greatest things about Saint Augustine to him. And who knows how he might even improve on Saint Augustine's own work.

G.K. Chesterton observed, "The fascination of children lies in this: that with each of them all things are remade, and the universe is put again upon its trial. As we walk the streets and see below us those delightful bulbous heads, three times too big for the body, which mark these human mushrooms, we ought always primarily to remember that within every one of these heads there is a new universe, as new as it was on the seventh day of creation. In each of those orbs there is a new system of starts, new grass, new cities, as new sea."

In children, infinite possibilities exist, and it is the parents' task to nurture the efflorescence of these potentials in an appropriate and virtuous way within the context of unconditional love. After all, as John Paul II remarked that the family is the only institution on earth in which a person is loved for who he is (which, I would add, is revealed by his name) rather than for what he does.

One can see then, the name Augustine is important to me. While celebrities (even those from the great Hoth-like city of Toledo) name their children some awful things such as Suri, I would hope some of us choose our children's names for a purpose, not solely based on the name's popularity or sound but primarily and ultimately based on reason.

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© Copyright 2007 Independent Collegian (www.independentcollegian.com)

IC Column: Grey's Anatomy All that Medicine is Not

I've finally done it. After many failed attempts, I gave up "Grey's Anatomy." My unsuccess in ridding myself of this overtly-sexualized-version of the television show ER is certainly not for lack of trying. It's just that for the longest time, I felt compelled to watch because "all my friends do" or for "educational purposes." I am in medical school, after all.

Some of my colleagues might balk at such a justification, but deep down all of us know that some of what we learn in medical school is about as relevant to medicine as this week's "Grey's." Don't worry, future patients - we're smarter than medical school thinks we are.

At any rate, the event that precipitated my liberation was nothing less than "Grey's" itself. The fact is the show has become completely unbelievable. And, as Mark Twain observed, the difference between reality and fiction is that fiction must be absolutely believable. "Grey's Anatomy" is a patronizing travesty of to what I've dedicated my life. If "Grey's" represents the goal of all this, then the ridiculous amount of hours I lost to the Beast, affectionately known by the name Gross Anatomy, seems for naught.

Yes, yes I know. One must go into it with an open mind and not expect to view "real medicine." Granted.

No doubt, "real medicine" is too frightening, confusing and unbearable for the masses to handle. That's why not everyone is a doctor. The simple fact is, however, that television shows and pop culture images such as those in "Grey's" do a great disservice to the profession.

The problem is not with the glamorization of medicine, for idealizing anything necessarily involves gilding it with elements which are not natural to it. The problem is with its implicit, and sometimes explicit, presuppositions about the nature of the medical profession. The characters in "Grey's" are not in medicine for their patients, (or any higher good so far as I can see) but for themselves.

Nevertheless, in the real world, every single person who gets in to medical school rephrases and means the words "I want to help people" during their interview. Otherwise, they don't get in. This is because the profession values selflessness and does its best to admit into its hallowed ranks only those people who display a certain minimal measure of altruism.

An example: in one episode, an orthopedic resident excuses herself from an operation in order to be "with her boyfriend" who is having difficulty dealing with his father's mortality.

Unbelievable.

True, doctors are people too, but when a person has placed themselves in your hands, expecting you to take care of them, you leave personal feelings behind you and treat the patient despite your own anger, frustration, sadness, depression etc. If not, then you don't deserve to be in medicine.

Another example, or really a few examples:, is that each of the characters is involved in some kind of complex, ridiculous relationship headed nowhere, and no one seems to mind.

One day Meredith is sleeping with her married attending. The next she is sleeping with her fellow intern and then sleeping with a veterinarian. The various sexual-relations permutations are mind-boggling throughout the show. Besides, would you want someone with as much insecurity and emotional baggage as Meredith Grey to operate on you? No.

Just imagine the indecision and unconfidence on the operating table. "Should I make the incision? No. Maybe he really doesn't have internal bleeding, and the car that struck him was only going five mph. Does the anesthesiologist know what she's doing? I think my butt looks too big in these scrubs. Is that dashing medical student ogling me from the surgery gallery and …." Flatline sound.

A final example: Remember the Hippocratic Oath? Because I do. It says, "Whatever house I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons."

You just can't have sexual relations with patients. It's not right. But one character goes so far as to get "engaged" to a patient, and while he's being treated for heart problems to boot! Can you imagine the exploitation that would take place, if medical ethics were defined by "Grey's Anatomy?" It's a disturbing picture.

What scares me is that, while the show is presently unbelievable. What happens when tomorrow's doctors (my fellow students) make it believable? That is something I don't care to think about.

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© Copyright 2007 Independent Collegian (www.independentcollegian.com).

Updates

So the baby was finally born. His name: Augustine Jerome. Thanks so much for all of your kind wishes and prayers. I've really enjoyed your comments and e-mails.

I've been hard at work and I must say I am overwhelmed. I have so many writing ideas floating around in my head but so little time to put them down on paper. I really enjoy medicine but medical school not so much. I had planned to do a ton of writing over spring break but more pressing matters (i.e. family) presented themselves. I mean if I don't change these diapers who will?

Admittedly, I have been cooking and baking a lot. I bought two cookbooks "Bread" and "Mediterranean" both of which have kept me busy. Tonight I tried to make falafel but that didn't quite turn out. Thankfully my Scottish morning rolls and Scottish oatcakes were a big hit. Who know the Scots would be so talented with grains?

I know some serious posts loom in the near future. For now checkout www.independentcollegian.com My recent column "Gunners" is a big hit!

re: On naming and some personal updates

Well today I submitted a short story and my medical school personal statement (which I am proud to admit was once described by an interviewer as "The most literary personal statement I'd read in twenty years") to the Legible Script's medical student writing contest. Check them out at www.thelegiblescript.org . The story is about the challenge of medical school. If it's published you can write to the kind people at the University of South Florida COM for a copy. Otherwise, assuming I retain publishing rights, I'll put it up here in the summer. On that note, this is an issue which continually confuses me. I mean, if I write something, should I at least have the right to use it as I wish?

At any rate, this week I'll be submitting an essay on Hippocratic medicine to the Francis A. Velay Humanism in Medicine Essay Contest sponsored by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation assuming of course my good, Catholic friend Blase Hennessy finishes editing it for me. He too is a writer and can be found at www.independentcollegian.com. Check his writings out. He likes to write about politics and is quite good at it. Plus, the more hits he gets, the more likely he'll be to go national. At least that's what I'm hoping. Long story short, whether I win or lose, my essay on Hippocrates will be up if and when it's allowed.

Lastly, on a personal note. Any day now we are expecting the birth of our second child, a boy. My wife and I continually to be at odds regarding the name. In what can only properly be described as a burning bush experience or the guiding hand of Providence, since I was fifteen or so I have been utterly convinced that I should name my first son Augustine, after the great 4th century Church Father who was so influential in my own conversion to Catholicism. My wife on the other hand, does not like the name.

My dilemma is this. For me, there has never ever been another name. It was always Augustine. For her, she has a few picked out. I told her to name him what she wants to, fully knowing how awkward a position I would be placing her in. Problem is, to pick another name, in my mind, would be like Zechariah opting not to name his son John (cf. Luke 1:63). It's something I cannot as a matter of conscience do (wouldn't you like to be married to me?).

You see, I have good reasons for wanting to name him Augustine. When you name something, you "say what it is" in the words of Aristotle. Naming, in a way, is to define the essence of a thing. That is why the Jews of the Old Testament placed such a high premium on the naming process, and why every time a name is changed in the Scriptures it is for some theologically significant reason. Think Abram to Abraham, Saul to Paul, or especially Simon to Peter. Each of these says something about who the person is or ought to be.

Perhaps I sound pedantic, but this is something so important, it of necessity cannot be anything less than a well reflected upon choice. Moreover, a name is the first thing a father can give to his child. For a mother, things are different. She gives throughout the entire gestation while the father waits patiently (and admittedly more comfortably) in expectation of the day. That is why I want to give my son something important and significant: namely the name Augustine. By doing so, I would be saying, here is the legacy I want to leave you with, to carry on the work of our family begun in my life when I was received into full communion with the Church and to carry on the work of great saints like Augustine who is such a marvelous example of grace working in a human life. After all, he is know to the West as the Doctor Gratiae (the doctor of grace).

Since it is the father's task to prepare and present his children to the world, by giving a meaningful name, I would be giving him a way of being known by the world and a way of expressing himself to it. "Augustine" to those who hear it will first, stand out (laugh it ,if you must with tiresome jokes) and second intrigue and third reveal. It's unicity will spark questions. Oh what does your name mean? And immediately he would have the opportunity to share the story of one of this world's greatest saints. The name is also revelatory. It says, "I'm a Catholic" and not just any Catholic, a Catholic like St. Augustine of old, an intellectual powerhouse of fidelity and love.

All right, I'm rambling now. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I'll put up pics as soon as the little guy is born. For now, some wisdom from St. Augustine that has nourished my soul and guided my life as long as I have been graced to know it.

This is a prayer of St. Augustine's that I pray everyday:

O God, Full of Compassion,
I commit and commend myself to you
In whom I am, I live, and know
Be the goal of my pilgrimage and my rest by the way
and may my soul take refuge from the crowding turmoil of earthly thoughts
beneath the shadow of your wings.
And may my heart, this sea of restless waves, find peace in you O God.

Catholic Action!

One of the best things a Catholic student in the health care professions can do is become involved with a local Catholic organization such as Newman Club or the Catholic Medical Student Association. Most campuses have some type of Catholic student organization. It’s worth becoming active even if you disagree with the leadership, take issue with the lack of catechesis among the members, etc., the point is to find some people with whom you can forge potential friendships. The culture war is not going to be won by a lone ranger. Catholics from all sides—spanning the whole theological spectrum—must gather together to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, receive the sacraments, heal the sick, learn about the faith and support one another.

For those of us who might be described as doggedly orthodox, and are prone to having a certain higher-level of catechesis, “social justice” at the expense of profound mystery becomes quite frustrating and even more tedious. However, we must ever remember, as Pope Benedict reminded us near the beginning of his pontificate, truth without love is empty and love without truth is blind. These are two sides of the same coin, as it were. Pouring our heart into helping the helpless as an expression and efflorescence of our love for Christ (and our concomitant theological orthodoxy) will only inspire a greater commitment to the Church and fidelity to Christ in those around us.

Think of Blessed “Mother” Teresa of Calcutta. Is there any doubt among anyone about her love for the Church and wholehearted acceptance of its teaching? No. Such acceptance spurred her great advocacy for and acceptance of the indigent. Is there any doubt about her commitment to the poor? No. She is remembered internationally as a woman of selfless abandonment to the “poor in spirit.” Such a one satisfies the Catholic heart either liberal or conservative and reminds us all that our response to the poor and suffering must ever be a response to the love God has for us and a result of the great gift of grace bestowed on us by His son.

No doubt, small gestures of great love and devotion can have a profound effect on the theologically tepid. So there’s nowhere to kneel during the Consecration? Kneel anyway as the Church prescribes. It won’t hurt you to kneel without padded kneelers for one day. Imagine what cost it was for Our Lord to take nails to His hands and feet, and to have His fascia (er, flesh) ripped away from His Holy Body. Bow during the Creed when “He became man.” Make all you do a prayer and people will want to know what inspires your action, devotion, and happiness.

Getting involved with your local Catholic student organization is a way for you to make a difference. You might possibly be the catalyst for a resurgence in your school of Catholic life. Maybe your organization only holds the occasional Mass and a few lunch-time meetings. Become a leader, and next year plan to increase membership twofold and set goals: to educate non-Catholics about specifically Catholic medical practice and ethics; to educate Catholics about what we believe, why we believe it, and why we should believe it, practice it, and teach it; to teach, at least rudimentarily, about NFP so patients can have all the options; invite renowned speakers to discuss Catholic issues and advertise around your local and campus community; hold monthly Masses, invite many Catholics and non-Catholics alike and hold a liturgy in which Heaven really does reach down to earth and earth is graced with heaven as in Michealangelo’s Creation of Man. The point is to faintly hear the angels singing. In truth, we must remember, the Mass can never be otherwise than that and far more greater than we can possibly grasp: for in it, Christ presents His eternal condescension to us by becoming not a bloodied body on a Cross, but a real and living presence under the appearance of bread and wine.

For now join the Catholic Medical Association and the Catholic Medical Student Organization.

http://www.cathmsa.org/

Both of these are great resources for all Catholic medical students. Perhaps, we’ll even be able to meet at the annual convention. In fact, I’ll count it: see you in Atlanta this October. Pax.

IC Column: Stem Cells Done Right

Stem cells done right

Patrick Beeman

Posted: 1/29/07

Let's face it; I'm a bit of a nerd. I don't like to party. In fact, I don't party at all because if I did, I'd be the guy alone in the corner the entire time my friends and I were mooching free drinks and snacks from some poor soul we'd never met.

When I drink, I prefer to do so "Inklings-style," as part of good, intellectual conversation (The Inklings were a group of scholars, including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, who met weekly at a pub to read their unpublished works and do other uniquely Oxonian things). And I won't drink anything that might be sold at a NASCAR event, but that's another story.

In fact, I'm more comfortable with a pint of Guinness draught and Dostoyevsky's "Brothers Karamazov" than with a pitcher of Miller-Lite and a table of rowdy friends. If only more pubs were set up for the kind of high-adventure that is the intellectual life. Alas. But that's what coffee shops are for.

But even at Beaners, you'd spy me translating Saint Augustine's "Confessions" from Latin, and drinking a "skinny" latte. You might even catch me adjusting my glasses by pressing finger or thumb to the bridge of my nose. So it's official, I'm kind of nerdy, which explains why every Wednesday when I receive the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, I drop what I'm doing and read it from cover to cover. OK, maybe I just read the headlines and two or three articles of interest.

At any rate, one recent issue sported an exciting piece on stem cell research, which I, as a Catholic medical student, am all for. Interest piqued? Read on.

Stem cells are great. They have the uncanny ability to differentiate into many different cell types. And without a doubt, they display potential in treating an obscenely long list of diseases including breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, and Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Syndrome (the "bubble-boy disease"). This is precisely why we need to continue pouring money into researching them. Who knows what cures lie on the horizon?

But notice how I didn't us the word "embryonic?" Embryonic stem cell research is quite another thing, for that requires destroying the embryo whose cells are harvested - that's just downright evil.

The aforementioned JAMA article cites examples of adult stem cells, which have shown promise in turning into the type of cell that is defective in diabetes. And then we read, "many scientists believe the best potential lies in embryonic stem cells." Why?

Does anyone remember the debacle in South Korea when Hwang Woo-Suk reported in the world's most prestigious scientific journal, "Science," that he had generated a human stem cell line from a cloned human embryo only to have to retract - to his great shame and to that of the much ballyhooing scientific community - this fabrication in June 2005? Or does anyone recall that many embryonic stem cells produce teratomas (a type of tumor containing many different types of tissue such as hair, teeth, etc.)? That is, embryonic stem cells produce cancer and those treated with them can die of fatal tumors.

In the words of Maureen Condic, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Utah's medical school, reporting in last month's "First Things," "The assertion that embryonic stem cells in the laboratory can be induced to form all the cells comprising the mature human body has been repeated so often that it seems incontrovertibly true. What is missing from this assertion remains the simple fact that there is essentially no scientific evidence supporting it." How's that for succinct?

The fact is that channeling billions of dollars of public monies into some scientific will-o'-the-wisp seems ludicrous when these resources could be allocated to funding already promising and uncontroversial research into adult stem cells. Why not cast down the scientific hubris and search for cures that don't require adopting the moral principles of the Third Reich? Our society can only be better for taking the moral high road by not treating human persons like products for technological manipulation.

Certainly no one wants our world to resemble Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," in which, among other perverse things, the very word "mother" becomes profanity. Yet, we're on the brink. And the solution is simple: we can start by keeping in mind the words of the great philosopher Dr. Seuss, who observed, "a person is a person no matter how small." That includes embryos.

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© Copyright 2007 Independent Collegian (www.independentcollegian.com)