Do You Think Atheists and Secular Spokesman Should Have Equal Air Time

In your faith, what are the most likely challenges posed by modern medicine?
Fr. Geoffrey Kerslake’s answer:

Modern medicine has made amazing progress in developing new therapeutic treatments to ease suffering and has even made significant progress in the search for the cures to many conditions. Occasionally, however, as a society we focus so much on the good we wish to accomplish that we lose sight of the morality of the methods we use to attain it. Jesus speaking about the heart of his mission, said: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10). The Church teaches us “[i]n truth, he is referring to that "new" and "eternal" life which consists in communion with the Father, to which every person is freely called in the Son by the power of the Sanctifying Spirit. It is precisely in this "life" that all the aspects and stages of human life achieve their full significance.”(Evangelicum Vitae n.1) Sometimes, in our effort to help the human person we can paradoxically threaten the sanctity and dignity of human life in the process. In our commendable efforts to help ease suffering we cannot justify the use of any means available: the worthy end of a cure does not excuse using a means which threatens the sanctity and dignity of human life. So, for example, embryonic stem cell research where a human life is destroyed in the course of scientific research is an attack on the dignity of human life itself. Respect for human life which begins at conception and continues until the moment of a natural death is the guiding principle we use to discern the ultimate goodness of any action which affects human life including, among others, issues concerning poverty, war, injustice, abortion, euthanasia and emerging technology in biomedical research.

Fr. Geoffrey Kerslake is a priest of the Archdiocese of Ottawa.