In a message at a health care conference read for the Pope Benedict
XVI, the Catholic Church leader said access to health care is a right
but not abortion, euthanasia or other practices destroying human life.
The
Pontiff said nations have a moral responsibility to guarantee access to
health care for all citizens, calling medical treatment one of the
“inalienable rights.”
“The care of man, his transcendent dignity and his inalienable
rights” should concern Catholics and non-Catholics alike, he said,
because one’s health is a “precious asset.”
But Pope Benedict cautioned that good health care does not include
practices that destroy human life like euthanasia, or artificial
reproductive techniques that destroy human life like human cloning of
in-vitro fertilization that involves the destruction of human embryos.
Thus, medical workers and nations ought to protect human life from
conception until natural death, he said, saying countries should protect
the “transcendent dignity and inalienable rights of the human being,”
according to Vatican Radio.
“Unfortunately, alongside positive and encouraging results, there are
opinions and ways of thinking that wound,” when it comes to health care
and treatment he said, referring to issues “related to the so-called
“reproductive health.”
“The love of justice, the protection of life from conception to
natural death, respect for the dignity of every human being should be
sustained and witnessed, even against the tide,” he said.
“These core
ethical values are the common heritage of universal morality and the
basis of democratic society.”
The comments come on the heels of a major battle in the United States
that forced the Catholic bishops to oppose a bill that would reportedly
expand access to health care because it did not cut off abortion
funding, protect the conscience rights of medical workers, and would
promote rationing.
The Catholic News Service indicated Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone,
Vatican secretary of state, read the Pope’s message to participants at
the 25th International Conference of the Pontifical Council for Health
Care Ministry.
SIC: LSN/INT'L