The Ashley Treatment, This Lay Woman’s view.

Discussions last week on the Ashley Treatment in the Catholic aspect of the blogosphere were polarizing. I did not find too many posts, articles or television reports that took a middle ground. Ashley’s parents were either demonized or canonized depending on what perspective you were coming from.

Catholics were not entirely of one mind on this. Theological/academic/canon law Catholics, at least the ones I read seemed quick to call the parents selfish and the medical procedures performed as “evil.” What I did not find was a lot of development and explanation of the Catholic perspective. I guess as a practicing lay Catholic, what I was looking for was the pastoral perspective given in the spirit of love and logic of John Paul II, the simple truth in love of St. John Vienney, or the practical insights of a Theresa of Avilla.

What I got was more along the lines of, “it’s wrong because “Catholic moral thought” says its wrong. It’s mutilation because it fits the definition of mutilation. The parents might not be evil, but the doctors sure were. And gosh, society sure needs to step up to the plate and help these people.”

To my mind, not very helpful, not every instructive, and certainly no where near pastoral.

I found these references in the catechism and canon law as apparently the central pieces of the argument against these procedures:


Catechism Catholic Church
2297 Kidnapping and hostage taking bring on a reign of terror; by means of threats they subject their victims to intolerable pressures. They are morally wrong. Terrorism threatens, wounds, and kills indiscriminately; it is gravely against justice and charity. Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity. Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law

Canon Law
Can. 1397 One who commits murder, or who by force or by fraud abducts, imprisons, mutilates or gravely wounds a person, is to be punished, according to the gravity of the offence, with the deprivations and prohibitions mentioned in can. 1336. In the case of the murder of one of those persons mentioned in can. 1370, the offender is punished with the penalties there prescribed.

Again from my perspective as a Catholic lay woman with a married vocation, it seems to me that both of these are addressing hostage or criminal situations. They certainly do not seem to address the circumstance of loving parents with a severely disabled child that they love with all their hearts and trying to make good decisions for!!

As most Catholics know, teachings grow and develop over time. It may in the future remain Catholic moral thought and Catholic ethics that altering physiology for anything less than a direct medical issue is wrong. If that remains the case, I am certain that the church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of some inspired teacher will be able to explain for families and caregivers who dearly love and care for the disabled in a way that will be much clearer and certainly more enlightening.

That doesn’t exist to my knowledge at this time.

On the other hand, it may be that certain procedures for these specific situations will be deemed morally licit. Time will tell.

The practicing Catholic (mainly women) mother/cargivers that I read were much more sympathetic to the parents and more practical in their approach to the day-to-day care of these children by their parents. One such mom even told me that, “there just aren’t a lot of great choices out there. “

Of the hundreds of blogs I read on the topic I think this one, written by a psychotherapist came the closest to my own feelings: