Condoms and Christianity
From: Global bioethics blog
When ideology met reality: the Catholic Church on condoms and AIDS
Catholic Online has a sensitive and thoughtful piece on the Catholic Church's position on condom use and the AIDS epidemic in Africa. It is striking that Catholics who live or work in countries with a high AIDS mortality rate seem to be more likely to try to reconcile condom use with Christ's teachings, while those far removed from the horrors (often comfortably tucked away in Europe or America) are more comfortable with a principled stand on the absolute unacceptability of using prophylactics. Conclusion of the piece, written by Dr. Marcella Alsan (a physician in the Hiatt Global Health Equity Residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston) is worth quoting in full:
If men did not stray, if women had rights, if AIDS did not kill, perhaps the church’s strict ban on condom use would be morally defensible. But none of these conditions applies in Africa today. As a consequence, the cost of the church’s inflexibility may mean not only untold human suffering, but the loss of millions of innocent lives. (.........)
Read more >>
http://globalbioethics.blogspot.com/2006/05/when-ideology-met-reality-catholic.html * We moved to the new blog. Please visit: http://www.lifestudies.org/weblog/
When ideology met reality: the Catholic Church on condoms and AIDS
Catholic Online has a sensitive and thoughtful piece on the Catholic Church's position on condom use and the AIDS epidemic in Africa. It is striking that Catholics who live or work in countries with a high AIDS mortality rate seem to be more likely to try to reconcile condom use with Christ's teachings, while those far removed from the horrors (often comfortably tucked away in Europe or America) are more comfortable with a principled stand on the absolute unacceptability of using prophylactics. Conclusion of the piece, written by Dr. Marcella Alsan (a physician in the Hiatt Global Health Equity Residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston) is worth quoting in full:
If men did not stray, if women had rights, if AIDS did not kill, perhaps the church’s strict ban on condom use would be morally defensible. But none of these conditions applies in Africa today. As a consequence, the cost of the church’s inflexibility may mean not only untold human suffering, but the loss of millions of innocent lives. (.........)
Read more >>
http://globalbioethics.blogspot.com/2006/05/when-ideology-met-reality-catholic.html * We moved to the new blog. Please visit: http://www.lifestudies.org/weblog/
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home