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HEALTH-ETHICS Feb-17-2005 (520 words) xxxi
Vatican official says right to pursue physical well-being is limited
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While one has "a moral duty" to maintain one's health, there are limits to the right to pursue physical well-being, said the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Bishop Elio Sgreccia.
Health, when defined as complete physical, mental and social well-being, has led to a "hedonistic" sense of well-being that can put the lives of the defenseless at risk, he said.
"Just think that, using the health of the woman as its motive, abortion was legalized," he said.
"So-called reproductive health involves abortion, sterilization and emergency contraception," he added.
The bishop's comments came before a Feb. 21-23 meeting sponsored by the Vatican academy that was set to address the ethical definitions of "quality of life" and "health."
Speaking at a Feb. 17 Vatican press conference about the upcoming meeting, Bishop Sgreccia said a sense for the sacredness of life is lost when expectations of what constitutes a decent quality of life are too high or too Utopian.
"Where an acceptable level of quality of life does not exist, life loses its value and is not worth being lived. As a result," he said, "quality of life becomes absolute, and the sacredness of life becomes relative."
The obsession with achieving or maintaining good health has practically become a new religion, said Dr. Manfred Lutz, a German psychiatrist and member of the academy.
"Not God, but an individual's health (becomes) the greatest good," he said.
One looks for "eternal life from medicine and eternal happiness from psychotherapy," he said.
Health is seen as just another product that can be bought and sold, and whoever is not healthy "tacitly becomes a second- or third-class" citizen, Lutz said.
While the right to be cured or healed is legitimate, that right also has been twisted into "a cynical formula in order to justify everything," such as using stem cells taken from human embryos in the fight against certain debilitating diseases, he said.
One theological expert on life issues, Franciscan Father Maurizio Faggioni, said people in rich countries have put unrealistic demands on medicine.
Medicine is expected "to respond to all the needs and desires of people," he said.
In the drive to fulfill those desires, the drug industry and medical world "absorb public resources beyond all reason," said Father Faggioni, adding that resources must be dedicated to basic health services.
When health is seen as "an essential good of the person, it is reasonable and necessary that society dedicates itself to recognize and promote the right to health for everyone," he said.
An ethical definition of health would mean incorporating the sacred nature of every human person, said the theologian.
A right to health would mean helping a person "live his life in the best way possible based on his mental and physical condition," he said.
"Young or old, healthy or sick, embryo or newborn, genius or idiot, the value of every human being is independent of his capabilities," he said.
In the Christian view, recognizing the sacred value of human life goes hand in hand with the promotion of quality of life for all people, he said.
END
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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