Poems Reading By Original Poet

Poems Reading By Original Poet

            Hearing poems from the original poet is a very profound experience. The poet read the poems with the right tone of voice, the right gestures and the right mood. Additionally, questions can be asked concerning the happening and events of the time and place when the poems were written. Unlike reading poems without knowing much about the events that led to the writing of a poem, one begins to interpret poems in a subjective manner.   

            Paul Pines styles of writing are unique, particularly his approach of writing poems. He makes his listeners look forward with eagerness and enthusiasm in wanting to hear more. I was particularly touched by how he incorporates his travels, his life experiences, and the people that are very dear to him in his poems.          

            Listening to Pines, I was fascinated by how he wrote poems to remember the places he had been, for instance Paris in France. This would not only immortalize the unique experiences he had while he was there, it will also help him in sharing this experiences with larger audience that might not have the opportunity of going to the place. Just as Pines wrote poems about his travels, other people keep journals of the places they had been. This will help to keep memories alive to generations that will come after. Without losing the past, we proceed to the future.

            Pines uses some descriptions that almost everyone can identify with. For instance, at the beginning of his poem reading, he described bread in a variety of ways. He said bread reminds him of home whenever he was on a journey. He shares or eats bread with his friends and family, and so on. As he was reading his poem about bread, it reminded me of the Christian ritual of breaking bread together during the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. It symbolizes unity just as Pines observed in his poems.

            Pines preserve the memories of the people that are irreplaceable in his live in the lines of his poems. For example, the poems he wrote for and about his daughter will forever be new no matter how old his daughter becomes. Whenever he reads about his daughter’s childhood in the lines of the poem, he is reminding himself about his favorite daughter. Just as a picture captures an event in time, so do poems. Whenever I look at my childhood pictures, I am reminded of the events that took place when the particular picture was taken. This way, memories are preserved and histories are made.  

            Overall, it was a nice experience to be able to hear a poet reading his poems to a large audience.

Beginning of Life: The Dignity of All God’s Creatures

        

            Human begins, like every other God’s creatures; desired to reproduce its kind. Many spouse conceived without any difficulty, while some have trouble conceiving a child. Childless couples usually seek medical help. Science has offered and continues to offer many glittering solutions to everyday problems, such as in vitro fertilization to solve childlessness. However, the benefits that science offered are intertwined. In other words, to every scientific solution, there are at least two ethical problems. This paper explains potential dangers posed to human dignity through the use of in vitro fertilization (IVF). It also discusses the need to look towards moral theology for profound solutions to everyday problems, rather than depending solely on philosophy. In particular, in vitro fertilization undermines the dignity of the embryo. It turns procreation into manufacture. The work of two philosophers, Leon R. Kass’s Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The challenge for bioethics and Anthony Fisher’s Catholic Bioethics for a New Millennium, will help us to understand this concept better.

There are many ethical questions concerning in vitro fertilization. For instance: When does life begin? What constitute a human being? Does the embryo has the same rights and dignity as fully developed human begins? To answer these questions, we need to look at choice make at every stage of in vitro fertilization. As medicine advances, the answers to these questions also change. Many people usually see ethical issues, such as in vitro fertilization, as a matter of right and wrong, good and evil, benefits and harms. What is at stake is the idea of the humanness of our human life and the meaning of our embodiment, our sexual being, and our relation to ancestors and descendants. Instead of asking if the issue is moral or immoral; people should try first to fully understand the meaning and significance of the proposed actions.”[1]

Life begins at fertilization. As Kass wrote, “The zygote, early embryonic stages are clearly alive because they metabolize, respire and respond to changes in the environment; they grow and divide. …Once fertilization is complete, there exists a new individual, with unique genetic identity, fully potent for the self-initiated development into a mature human being, if circumstances are cooperative. …It possesses a power to become what everyone will agree is a human being.”[2]

To maximize the effectiveness of the IVF process, several eggs has to be fertilized and implanted at the same time in the womb in the hope that some will survive. As Kass writes,  “Current procedures to initiate pregnancy with laboratory fertilization thus differ from the natural process in that what would normally be spread over four or five months in vivo is compressed into a single effort, using all at once a four or five months’ supply of eggs.” [3] In the case where two or more survived in the womb, then there is issue with selective reduction to ensure that other babies have better chance of surviving and less treat to the mother.

Then there is a problem of what happens to the embryos that are not implanted in the womb? What should be done to them? Destruction, storage, use in research, implantation donation to third-party couples? These are some practices that trigger the question of human dignity. When human begins become creators, they first create and then wonder what to do next. They are unwilling to assume responsibilities for what result from their choice.

So many fetus at the stage of embryo development have been interrupted because the experimental conditions of their in- vitro culture, of the selection practiced on them, and their non-transfer to the uterus. This developing human in vitro deserve our respect not because it has rights or claims, but because of what it is, now and prospectively. Therefore, failure to implant it is homicide.[4]     

Those who are in support of in vitro fertilization may argued that the natural loss of embryos in early pregnancy  cannot in itself be a warrant for deliberately aborting them or for invasively experimenting on them in vitro, any more than stillbirths could be a justification for newborn infanticide.[5]

There are questions of using the embryos for experiment or as Kass rightly said, “What about experimentation on such blastocysts and early embryos? Is that compatible with the respect they deserve?... Invasive and manipulative experiments involving such embryos very likely presume that they are things or mere stuff and deny the fact of their possible viability.” [6] There is no different from someone who deliberately procure abortion and a scientist who intentionally carry out selective reduction or other experiment of the embryo in the laboratory.

Human desire for mastering the mystery of birth has led us to reducing humanness to mere body. We constantly range against the virtues of piety, humility and temperance because we are overwhelmed by our desire to master and control. As Kass said, “Our society is dangerously close to losing its grip on the meaning of some fundamental aspects of human existence. In reviewing the problem of the disrespect shown to embryonic and fetal life in our efforts to master them, we noted a tendency to reduce certain aspects of humanness to mere body, a tendency opposed most decisively in the nearly universal prohibition of cannibalism.”[7] Human beings are composed of body, mind and spirit. Lying emphasize only on physical aspect of our being is like appreciating parts more than a whole.

In vitro fertilization does not only dehumanize the fetus, but is also reduces a profound gift of procreation – co-creators with God – into manufacture. The couples are no more than suppliers of raw materials to a scientist to produce a child. As Kass noted, “It is also to deny the meaning of the bonds among sexuality, love and procreation. They buying and selling of human flesh and the dehumanized uses of human body ought not to be encouraged.”[8]

The potential human life that is so precious and unique is subject to different kind of manipulations. Our society is becoming more and harsher. As Kass noted, “It is hard to claim respect for human life in the laboratory in a society that does not respect human life in the womb. It is hard to talk about the meaning of sexuality and embodiment in a culture that treats sex increasingly as sport and has trivialized gender, marriage and procreation…. It is hard to speak about restrain in a culture that seems to venerate very little above man’s own attempt to master all.”[9]The use of human embryo, has led to a culture where they are regarded as commodities rather than the precious individuals which they are.

The latest scientific advances in health care and fertilization bring with them promising new horizons, but not without vice. There are many questions that seek answers. However, depending solely on philosophy, we cannot get too far. We need theology to enlighten us in order to cultivate virtue. Virtue will help us to respect the dignity of human life. As Fisher noted, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life.”[10]

There is an urgent need to cultivate virtues. Virtues help us to organize our misguided passion. They are source of inner strength that every human being needs to be truly happy. For instance, the virtue of temperance gives order and balance to human life. When there is an order, then we can enjoy good things in life, while respecting our natural limits. Another virtue that we need is humility. Humility enables us to know our limitations, and accept it as God’s gift. A childless couples who have tried conceiving but with no success will accept their fate and use that energy creatively in bringing about God’s kingdom by helping others.  God planned that human life can only be initiated legitimately through natural conjugal act between spouses. “These techniques can enable man to take the temptation to go beyond the limits of a reasonable dominion over nature.”[11] IVF might constitute progress in the service of humanity, but it also involves serious moral risks. The Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith writes:

            From the moment of conception, the life of every human being is to be respected in an absolute way because man is the only creature on earth that God has wished for himself, and the spiritual soul of each man is immediately created by God; his whole being bears the image of the creator. Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains forever in a special relationship with its creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can, in any circumstance, claim for himself the right to destroy an innocent human being. Human procreation requires on the part of the spouses responsible collaboration with the fruitful love of God; the gift of human life must be actualized in marriage through the specific and exclusive acts of husband and wife, in accordance with the laws inscribed in their persons and in their union.[12]

God created each of us secretly in silence and without the knowledge of anyone, not even the mother, It is now been reduced to creative designed of human intelligence. As Kass said, “With in vitro fertilization, the human embryo emerges for the first time from the natural darkness and privacy of its mother’s womb, where it is hidden away in mystery, into the bright light and utter publicity of the scientist’s laboratory, where it will be treated with unswerving rationality, before the clever and shameless eye of the mind and beneath the obedient and equally clever touch of the hand.”[13] 

In conclusion, respect for the beginning of human life and the dignity of human procreation are too scared to be turned into commodity and manufacturing.  The primacy of the protection and promotion of human life and of the dignity of the human person cannot be compared with scientific and technological progress. Every human being has dignity because we are created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, dignity exists from the earliest moment of conception to the new human being and remains with them to their natural death. Therefore, not everything that is scientifically brilliant, or clinically possible, or legally permitted is good.

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[1] Leon R. Kass, Life, Liberty and the defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics. San Francisco. Encounter Books, 2002. 85

[2] Kass., 87 - 88

[3] Kass., 92

[4] Kass., 89

[5] Kass 92

[6] Kass., 93

[7] Kass., 99

[8] Kass., 101

[9] Kass., 115

[10] Anthony Fisher, Catholic Bioethics for a New Millennium. Cambridge, University press, 2012. 21.

[11] Pope John Paul II, 1980.

[12] Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith, 1988.

[13] Kass., 116

Is Biomedical Enhancement Good or Evil?

Human enhancement, especially biomedical enhancement, has and continues to raise many ethical questions in society. Is human desire for mastering and possessing nature through technology good or bad? Is it ethical to use biomedical enhancement not only to treat disease, but also to intervene or improve human life? This paper focuses on the work of two philosophers, Michael J. Sandel’s The Case Against Perfection and Allen Buchanan’s Better Than Human. Sandel discussed some potential dangers that non- biomedical and biomedical enhancements bring to human society from the athletic domain to the aspect of genetic choice. On the other hand, Buchanan focused on the benefits of biomedical enhancement and how it has and will continue to improve human well being and help people adapt to their rapidly changing environments. Therefore biomedical enhancement poses threats to human nature, yet it is necessary to some point.

Sandel defined biomedical or genetic enhancement as “employ[ing] medical means for nonmedical ends – ends unrelated to curing or preventing disease, repairing injury or restoring health.”[1] Sandel claimed that enhancements alter human nature. He says: “The predicament is that our newfound genetic knowledge may also enable us to manipulate our nature – to enhance our muscles, memories, moods; to choose the sex, height, and other genetic traits of our children; to improve our physical and cognitive capacities; to make ourselves ‘better than well’.”[2] He is particularly against biomedical enhancement for the following reasons. It destroys the appreciation of those who are naturally gifted. In other words, it creates unfairness with other people who do not use or have access to enhancement. It violates the child’s right to autonomy. In additiona, Sandel urges people to accept life as a gift. People are to be open to the unbidden and give room for humility and solidarity.

One of the Sandel’s issues about the use of enhancement is that it destroys appreciation for those who are naturally gifted. For example in athletics the desire for perfection by using performance-enhancement, such as steroids, destroys the appreciation of those who are naturally gifted in athletics. Many people are concerned about the integrity of the game. Is the achievement of an athlete based on natural talents or pharmaceutical enhancement? Or, as Sandel puts it, “How can we distinguish changes that improve from those that corrupt?”[3] Sandel suggests that there is need to differentiate between lawful and unlawful enhancement. For example, running shoes enhance a runner’s natural ability to run, and this is legitimate, while taking steroids is not.

Sandel furthers argued that the use of performance-enhancement creates unfairness toward those athletes who do not have access to enhance their ability in a game. He furthers said that if enhancements of all sorts are allowed in a game, then people will no longer appreciate the individual athlete competing. Rather the game has been reduced to a mere exhibition, and the athletes take no responsibility for their performances. The use of performance- enhancement changes the nature of the game. Therefore, the use of performance-enhancement in athletics threatens the integrity of the game. He writes: “It is sometimes thought that genetic enhancement erodes human responsibility by overriding effort and striving. But the real problem is the explosion, not the erosion, of responsibility. As humility gives way, responsibility expands daunting proportions. … Athletes become responsible for acquiring, or failing to acquire, the talents that will help their team win.”[4]

Another crucial reason why Sandel objects to biomedical enhancement is the question of parental choices or, as he rightly puts it, “Designing Parents.”  Parents’ desire to choose their children’s traits poses a threat because parents want to overcome chances that are natural to human nature. Rather, parents want to “master the mystery of birth.”[5] Children are gifts, and they are to be cherished and loved unconditionally for who they are and not for the gifts that they possess. It is true that one can choose one’s friends and spouse, but children are gifts; and gifts are not chosen, they are given. Parents’ love must not depend on their children’s attributes or traits.

Consequently, when parents choose their children’s traits, they are taking sole responsibility for the child’s future Sandel argued. He further said that “we attribute less to chance and more to choice. Parents become responsible for choosing or failing to choose, the right traits for their children.”[6] When parents choose a child’s traits, they are choosing the child’s future, therefore, taking the place of God. Sandel encourages parents to resist the drive for mastery and control and instead embody an openness to the unbidden.[7]

Parents’ choice of their children’s traits does not only threaten the mystery of birth, but it also violates children’s right to autonomy. Sandel argued that biomedical enhancement violates the liberal principles of autonomy and equality of the children who are involved. He said: “It violates autonomy because genetically programmed persons cannot regard themselves as ‘the sole authors of their own life history’”[8] Sandel is concerned primarily about the vice of over-reaching, for “parents bent on enhancing their children are more likely to overreach, to express and entrench attitudes at odds with the norms of unconditional love.”[9] Parents who are preoccupied with enhancing their children biomedically will eventually determine and choose the future of their children, therefore inhibiting their right to autonomy and self- determination.

Sandel argued that we must advocate an ethics of humility and giftedness to replace the tendency to overreach. “The problem with eugenics and genetic engineering is that they represent the one-sided triumph of willfulness over giftedness, of dominion over reverence, of molding over beholding.”[10] If human nature is something made rather than given, then human beings are responsible for everything that they do and become. They can no longer appeal to chance or luck or God for any error that occurs.[11]

Again, Sandel argued that if biomedically enhanced children become widespread, there will be a break-down of solidarity. If human nature can be shaped and determined prior to birth, then those who have these genetic advantages will reproach those who lack them.[12] In other words, if human beings succeed in eliminating the eventuality of life, it will deeply alter the human sense of humility, responsibility and solidarity.

In contrast to Sandel’s view, Buchanan is in support of biomedical enhancement. He argues that biomedical enhancements are the same as other non-biomedical enhancements. Appealing to evolution, Buchanan claimed that evolution itself is a process of enhancement. He defined enhancement as “…an intervention – a human action of any kind – that improves some capacity (or characteristic) that normal human beings ordinarily have or, more radically, that produces a new one.”[13] Biomedical enhancement, however, “uses biotechnology to cause an improvement of an existing capacity by acting directly on the body (including human brain).”[14] He argued that it is in human nature to strive for self-improvement; and, since biomedical enhancement is able to do this for us, we should be open to it. This way, we are able to choose what will better our nature rather than allowing nature to select for us at random.[15]

However, Buchanan’s objections concerning Sandel’s arguments on biomedical enhancement are not well supported. For example, Buchanan protested that “Trying to enhance human capacity doesn’t mean you are trying to achieve perfection or total control.”[16] He said that there are many reasons why people choose to enhance, not necessarily strive for perfection. However, Buchanan never actually gave any reason why enhancement is not desire for mastering. His claim is rather too broad and general.

In contrast, Sandel clearly explained that the desire for mastering by employing biomedical enhancement is misplacing our place in creation and confusing our role with God’s. With many examples such as “Designing Parents” as explained earlier, Sandel is able to convey his message to his readers.[17]

Buchanan opposed Sandel’s argument about the need for parents to be open to the unbidden and love their children unconditionally. Instead of giving a sound and convincing argument why he thinks Sandel is wrong, Buchanan seems to be attacking Sandel personally and not Sandel’s stand concerning genetic enhancement. For instance, he writes: “If I have a child with cleft palate, I’m a callous jerk if I say to the surgeon who wants to repair it: ‘No thanks: I’ve got unconditional love for my child; his cleft palate was unbidden. I’m remaining open to it. I appreciate the giftedness in life.’”[18] He totally misunderstood Sandel, or rather, he is being sarcastic.

On the contrary, Sandel said that “To appreciate children as gifts or blessings is not to be passive in illness or disease. Healing a sick or injured child does not override her natural capacities but permits them to flourish.”[19]He also said that “Medicine is governed, or at least guided, by the norm of restoring and preserving the natural human functions that constitute health.”[20] In other words, Sandel is not against treating sickness and disease like cleft palate as Buchanan argued. Rather he supports biomedical enhancement that has to do with restoring health back to normal and not to deliberately want a child to be “better than well.”

I agree with Sandel because considering the happenings in our society, biomedical enhancement is both good and dangerous. If we continue to give way to biomedical enhancement, human value and nature will deteriorate. There will be no more consideration for what is good or what is not so good. For instance, if every couple decided to have their children through In Vitro Fertilization (IVM), then in the next thirty years at least, those who will be making ethical decisions will be products of IVM. Of course IVM will become a way of life. We can be sure that more of such “intervention” as Buchanan argued will be invented.

However, human enhancements are also necessary in the sense that we use them to improve human conditions. For example, a child born with some defects such as cleft palate, Attention Deficiency Disorder (ADD), cancer and many more, can be restored to normal health through the use of biomedical enhancement. As Mill said that, “ … of ill-regulated desires, or of bad or imperfect social institutions. All the grand sources, in short, of human suffering are in a great degree, many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort.”[21] Therefore, we have a moral duty within our capacity to continue to improve ourselves to promote happiness.

Also, using biomedical enhancement to select children’s traits is treating others as a means to our selfish end. As Kant pointed out, we have the moral obligation to treat others as an end in themselves and not as a mean towards a certain end.[22]

In conclusion, we have to always remember these words of Sandel that “To acknowledge the giftedness of life is to recognize that our talents and powers are not wholly our own doing, nor even fully ours, despite the efforts we expend to develop and to exercise them. It is also to recognize that not everything in the world is open to any use we may desire or devise. ”[23]

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[1] [1] Michael J. Sandel, The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University press, 2007. 8

[2] Sandel., 5-6

[3] Sandel.,37

[4] Sandel., 87

[5] Sandel 82

[6] Sandel 87

[7] Sandel 45 -46

[8] Sandel 80

[9] Sandel 49

[10] Sandel 85

[11] Sandel., 87

[12] Sandel., 91-92

[13] Allen Buchanan, Better Than Human, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, 5

[14] Buchanan., 5

[15] Buchanan., 38

[16] Buchanan., 152

[17] Sandel., 85

[18] Buchanan 158

[19] Sandel 46

[20] Sandel., 47

[21] John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2001, page 15

[22] Dr. Dwyer, Lecture PowerPoint, Summer 2014, slide 3.

[23] Sandel., 27

Canticle of the Creatures

Canticle of the Creatures by St. Francis of Assisi

Most High, all-powerful, good Lord, Yours are the praises, the glory, and the honor, and all blessing, To You alone, Most High, do they belong, and no human is worthy to mention Your name. Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, Who is the day and through whom You give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor; and bears a likeness of You, Most High One. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, in heaven You formed them clear and precious and beautiful. Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind, and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather, through whom You give sustenance to Your creatures. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water, who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste. Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom You light the night, and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong. Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs. Praised be You, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your love, and bear infirmity and tribulation. Blessed are those who endure in peace for by You, Most High, shall they be crowned. Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whom no one living can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin. Blessed are those whom death will find in Your most holy will, for the second death shall do them no harm. Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks and serve Him with great humility.

Prayer for Generosity

Prayer for Generosity

 Eternal Word, only begotten Son of God,
Teach me true generosity.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve.
To give without counting the cost,
To fight heedless of wounds,
To labor without seeking rest,
To sacrifice myself without thought of any reward
Save the knowledge that I have done your will.
Amen. -St. Ignatius of Loyola