To Treat or Not to Treat The Ethical Methodology of Richard A. McCormick S.J., As Applied to Treatment Decisions for Handicapped Newborns

Richard A. McCormick, S.J., who was known as the Dean of Roman Catholic moral theologians in the United States for decades, proposes a patient-centered, quality-of-life approach to treatment decisions that appears to meet the needs of decision makers. The primary focus of this book is an articulation, analysis, and evaluation of the three constitutive elements of McCormick's ethical methodology (anthropology, epistemology, and criteriology) as each relates to treatment decisions for handicapped newborns. The author applies McCormick's ethical methodology to five diagnostic treatment categories of handicapped newborns, to show that McCormick's normative method offers a practical and beneficial approach that can serve as a public policy option for treatment decisions for handicapped newborns. The importance of this critical examination can serve not only an academic, theoretical purpose -- the advancement of moral theology -- but it can also serve a clinical, practical purpose -- giving assistance to parents and health care professionals in making well discerned and sensitive, moral decisions that affect the lives of handicapped neonates. Book jacket.

Peter A. Clark, S.J., Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Theology and Health Administration and holder of the John McShain Chair in Ethics at Saint Joseph's University inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania. He is also an Affiliated Scholar-Associate at the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University Medical Center and Bioethicist for the Mercy Health System in Philadelphia