COMMENTARY

Post Date: March 08, 2005

John Kilner Guest on Focus on the Family

by John F. Kilner and Carrie Gordon Earll

Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (CBHD) Senior Scholar John Kilner was a guest on the nationally syndicated Focus on the Family (FOTF) radio program on Tuesday, March 8. The program, hosted by FOTF founder Dr. James Dobson and joined by FOTF Bioethics Analyst and CBHD Fellow Carrie Gordon Earll, discussed the most recent developments in the life-or-death legal battle of Terri Schiavo and the related ethical dimensions of her case.

On the program, Dr. Kilner's expressed his concerns about how society deals with cases like Terri Schiavo's, where there is uncertainty about the patient's medical condition and about her wishes concerning discontinuation of treatment. If life truly is precious, then therapies that might make a significant difference ought to be tried-particularly when funding was provided for them by a court decision as happened in this case well over a decade ago. If a patient's wishes really matter, then when there is substantial debate about what a patient would have wanted and the guardian has a conflict of interest (financial gain and a sexual relationship with another woman in this case), then a more objective guardian should be appointed to assess Terri's wishes.

CBHD Resources

• Robert Cranston, M.D. — The Terri Schiavo Debacle: What Have We Learned?

• John F. Kilner — Don't Wait to Make Your End-of-Life Wishes Known

• Purchase The Advance Directive Kit

• All CBHD articles on Death & Dying

• All CBHD articles

About The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity

The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity is an international center located just north of Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is to develop reasoned perspectives on all of today's bioethical issues and to disseminate them to health care professionals, academia, cultural and church leaders, public policy makers, and the media in order to protect human dignity.

Please consider partnering with CBHD to help make it possible for the Center to continue to be a voice for the dignity of human beings created in the image of God. For more information, please click here.

More information

• More information on the broadcast at Focus on the Family

• Listen to the broadcast of "Insights on Terri Schiavo" at OnePlace.com (you may have to scroll down the page a bit to find it)

CBHD

John F. Kilner, Ph.D., is Senior Scholar at The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity.

Carrie Gordon Earll, M.A., serves as the bioethics analyst in the Public Policy Division of Focus on the Family and is a Fellow of The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity.

Copyright 2005 by The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity

This article also appears in The Vision, the newsletter of Crossroads Church, Grayslake, Illinois.

The contents of this article do not necessarily reflect the opinions of CBHD, its staff, board or supporters. Permission to reprint granted as long as The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity and the web address for this article is referenced.