The Catholic Health Association of the United States has chosen to allow the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services to supersede Pope John Paul II’s allocution on patients in a permanent vegetative state.
The current Medicare operation—reimbursing medical goods and services to a growing number of people without basing the reimbursement benefit on the actual cost of the services—is unsustainable, but there are some possible remedies.
Direct sterilization by means of tubal ligation is morally unacceptable in Catholic bioethics but other procedures that result in indirect sterilization may be acceptable under certain conditions.
Catholic medical school education and the Catholic health care systems in the U.S. emphasize the moral growth of the physician and respect for the body, mind and spirit of patients.
A debate about the images of war victims that pits physicians' duty to protect patient privacy against their public health duty to respond to the devastation of war.