Reference: Legal Scan

A 31-year-old Toronto woman was reported to be near final approval for socially-assisted death, which she sought because she was “unable to secure an affordable apartment that doesn’t worsen her chronic illnesses.”  The woman was reported to have been diagnosed with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS), which triggers “rashes, difficulty breathing, and blinding headaches called hemiplegic migraines that cause her temporary paralysis,” and to have explained that “I’ve applied for MAiD essentially…because of abject poverty.” She began working on MAiD applications in the summer of 2021 and found that applying for medically assisted death “has been surprisingly easier” than being relocated to an apartment that is wheelchair accessible and has cleaner air. One of the woman’s doctors is reported to have observed that “none of the doctors contacted her to learn about the efforts to help Denise find housing first…despite research showing that people with multiple chemical sensitivities often improve in chemically cleaner environments.”

A GoFundMe page, organized by David Fancy, professor of drama arts at Brock University and a disability rights advocate, in aimed toward raising funds to help the woman find better accommodations.” A senior policy analyst with the Income Security Advocacy Centre in Toronto, is reported to have said “With the right support, I have no doubt people with disabilities can live well in society. We all want people with disabilities to know that their lives have value.” David Lepofsky, disability advocate and Visiting Professor of Disability Rights at Osgoode Hall Law School, said, “We’ve now gone on to basically solving the deficiencies in our social safety net through this horrific backdoor.”

Others are helping.  What can we do, as individuals, organizations, and a Church?

House of Commons

• C-18 – Online News Act – 1^st reading Gov’t bill, to regulate online news and news providers
• C-230 – To Protect Conscience Rights – 1^st reading Conservative Private member’s bill
• C-257 – Protect Against Discrimination Based on Political Belief – 1^st reading Conservative Private member’s bill
• C-243 – Elimination of the use of forced labour and child labour in supply chains – 1^st reading Liberal Private member’s bill
• C-255 – Financial assistance for Canadians with disabilities to improve access to post-secondary education – 1^st reading, NDP Private member’s bill
• C-273 – Repeal a provision that authorizes the correction of a child by force- 1^st reading NDP Private member’s bill

Senate

• S-210 – To Restrict Young Persons’ Online Access to Explicit Material – referred to committee Senate Public bill
• S-223 – New Offences Related to Trafficking in Human Organs – 2^nd reading Senate Public Bill
• S-232  – Decriminalization of Illegal Substances 1^st reading
• S-233 – Framework for a guaranteed livable basic income – Debate at 2^nd reading
• S-243  – To enact climate commitments – 1^st reading Liberal Private member’s bill

A common theme in current social discourse is the rapidly-expanding list of postulated civic rights, focused on the expectations of individuals in their dealings with other members of society.  Expectations concerning entitlements to life, death, speech, income, respect, and physical and emotional self-expression are constant topics in the news, social media, and mass entertainment, as well as political campaign materials.  Although these expectations are most often referred to as “rights,” other commonly-used terms include “entitlements” and things we “deserve.” The terms frequently appear to be used interchangeably.

What does it mean when we say that individuals have “rights” to things, or are “entitled” to them, or “deserve” them?  For example, what does it mean to say that one has a “right” to dignity or respect, or that he or she “deserves” it?  Does that mean that we as a society have a duty to establish a social framework that frees individuals from unjust obstructions in their efforts to accomplish or acquire such things, or are we personally expected to provide demonstrable material, monetary, or emotional support to all those in the class of rights holders, in accordance with their individual concepts of dignity?  Does it mean that others around us are subject to our own enforceable demands for approval and material support, at their expense and no matter what we ask?  In other words, if I want something I am “entitled” to, can I be required to work for it, or must it be given to me on request, either by individuals or society?

Does the scope of a right depend on its nature?  For example, if I am entitled to a sense of personal dignity, and decide that ownership of a large car is critical to that sense, does my right mean that I am free to find a job and work for the car, or must the government – or even my neighbor – provide one for me?  If I decide that my sense of personal dignity requires me to change my gender, or modify my facial appearance or other aspects of body, is it fair for me to pay for those modifications myself, or should others be required to pay for them?

If, on the other hand, I have a right to clean, breathable air, and the air around me is polluted and unhealthy, do I have a reasonable expectation that the government, industry, or others will take steps to ensure that breathable air is available to me, or am I on my own to find breathable air?

Catholic Teaching

At least one Catholic dictionary defines a “right” as a subjective moral power, residing in one or more persons, “to do, hold, or extract something,” which functions through appeal to the free and voluntary will of others as a product of their intellects.  “Right” in this sense is to be distinguished from “might”, i.e. a physical force or power to take something away from another.

The Church also teaches that every legitimate human right and freedom is associated with one or more corresponding duties on the part of the rights holders and sometimes others as well.  At a minimum, for example, with respect to each legitimate right there exists a corresponding Christian duty on the parts of both the rights holders and others to examine their consciences and discern what, if anything, each of them should do about it.

Catholic social teaching identifies the following human rights:

• the right to life, an integral part of which is the right of the child to develop in the mother’s womb from the moment of conception;
• the right to live in a united family and in a moral environment conducive to the growth of the child’s personality;
• the right to develop one’s intelligence and freedom in seeking and knowing the truth;
• the right to share in the work which makes wise use of the earth’s material resources, and to derive from that work the means to support oneself and one’s dependents; and
• the right freely to establish a family, to have and to rear children through the responsible exercise of one’s sexuality.

The source and synthesis of these rights is “the right to live in the truth of one’s faith and in conformity with one’s transcendent dignity as a person.”

The Church acknowledges that some rights are fundamental, and arise by virtue of our human nature, in that each unique human person is created in the image and likeness of God. These “inalienable” rights flowing from God can be recognized by positive law, such as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but not are conferred by them, or subject to regulation by the state. This means they cannot be taken by the state, for they do not belong to the state. In the view of the Church, any law which fails to recognize such freedoms or purports to override them is unjust. Thus, for example, a series of historical court precedents exist which deprived legal personhood status from various groups, including black slaves in the USA, women in Canada, and currently the unborn.  In the Church’s view, each of these decisions exceeds the power of the state.

Also at play currently is an increasingly popular model whereby the right of one purports to generate a duty requiring the active participation of another in the exercise of their right. For example, a person may be forced to attend a social event or ceremony, contrary to their conscience, on pain of losing their employment or other form of public condemnation. A doctor, for example, may be compelled to provide euthanasia.

Points to Ponder

Consider discussing the following questions with your local candidates, elected officials, and the parties, and with your family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and fellow parishioners.  On prayerful reflection, consider sharing your conclusions with your elected representatives by writing respectful and informative letters.  Or perhaps consider engaging on the issue more intensively, by participating in advocacy organized by civil society organizations or by joining and participating in a political party or other movement.

• Is the Catholic definition of “right” consistent with secular definitions? Consider, for example, whether consistent legal definitions are provided in accepted law dictionaries, judicial decisions, and documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• What, if anything, is the difference between a right, an entitlement, and something one deserves, particularly when used in political party platforms, campaign speeches, or civic debate?
• How does one decide that new rights or entitlements should be declared, and what the contours of those rights are? Are they binding on the governments that declare them?  Do they impose obligations on other social institutions, such as the Church, schools, businesses, or individual families?  On individuals not related to the holders of the newly-declared rights? Do I have a right to declare my own further rights and thereby impose burdens on others?
• Where there exist gaps between a right-holder’s needs and support that is legitimately available through ultimately coercive governmental programs, is it possible that other social institutions might step in? For example, is it possible that charities and other voluntary associations could step in to fill gaps?  Might that allow individuals an opportunity for meaningful public service?
• Some observers, including Pope Francis, have questioned the motivations of those who promote what seem to be frivolous, radically-individualist rights as part of an aggressive process of “deconstructionism,” in which all traditional notions of right and wrong are not only challenged, but presumptively dismissed as primitive and archaic. The Holy Father suggests that such persons may be intentionally driving people apart in order to manipulate them:

A kind of “deconstructionism”, whereby human freedom claims to create everything starting from zero, is making headway in today’s culture[, leaving] in its wake the drive to limitless consumption and expressions of empty individualism. [They who seek power] need the young to be shallow, uprooted and distrustful…

Is it possible that, deliberately or otherwise, large segments of our population – including not only our young people but everyone who can be described as “consumers” – are being manipulated for purposes other than those consistent with their authentic growth as human beings who in fact are entitled to and deserve a social framework that enables and encourages them to seek truth?  If so, what can or should be done about it?

• What, if anything, is the relation between the exercise of civic rights and exercise of the Christian virtue of humility, or the Catholic principles of subsidiarity and the common good? In Veritatis splendor, Pope St. John Paul II observed that:

[Man’s] history of sin begins when he no longer acknowledges the Lord as his Creator and himself wishes to be the one who determines, with complete independence, what is good and what is evil. “You will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5): this was the first temptation, and it is echoed in all the other temptations to which man is more easily inclined to yield as a result of the original Fall.

• As Pope Benedict XVI put it, “as history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.” Should we be concerned by mounting claims that the duty of state neutrality requires certain viewpoints to be adopted and others suppressed?

Sources:

• Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church
• Modern Catholic Dictionary, Fr John Hardon
• Pope Francis:  Fratelli tutti (2020)
• Saint John Paul II:  Veritatis splendor (1993)

Our first-cut voter’s guide for November’s US midterm elections has been posted at https://catholicconscience.org/usa/2022midterm/.  We will update it as conditions allow, as the elections approach.  We welcome suggestions for improvement.

Pope Francis recently called all Catholics to prayer for a Christian response to contemporary bioethical challenges. Pope Francis writes:

“Let us pray that we may give a Christian response to bioethical challenges. It is evident that science has progressed, and today the field of bioethics presents us with a series of problems to which we must respond, not hiding our head like an ostrich. Applications of biotechnological must always be used based on respect for human dignity. For example, human embryos cannot be treated as disposable material, to be discarded. This throw-away culture is also applied to them; no, that can’t be done. Extending that culture this way does so much harm. Or allowing financial gain to condition biomedical research.

“We need to understand the profound changes that are taking place with an even more profound and subtle discernment. It’s not a matter of curbing technological advances. No, we must accompany them. It’s about protecting both human dignity and progress. That is to say, we cannot pay the price of human dignity for progress, no. Both go together, in harmony. We pray for Christians facing new bioethical challenges; may they continue to defend the dignity of all human life with prayer and action.”