[ad_1]
I studied physics at university with the aim of becoming a research scientist. During my first year I suffered a spiritual crisis and after periods of searching came a new experience of God’s love and presence.
Rather to my surprise, I felt a growing professional calling towards medicine and began training at St Thomas’s.
I gained experience in a number of areas including intensive care, internal medicine for adults and then general pediatrics. I was drawn to neonatology because I loved children, and it was a fast-paced and exciting specialty. It combined a logical and rigorous scientific and technical element, but also required compassion, excellent communication skills and emotional sensitivity.
I joined my colleagues in a research program designed to combat brain injuries in infants, as it remains the major unsolved problem in neonatology, causing death and devastating lifelong disability for many children and families. After more than 20 years and collaboration with scientists around the world, our research has led to an experimental new treatment, therapeutic hypothermia, for babies who have been exposed to oxygen deprivation at birth.
My biggest surprise was that it turned out to be successful, reduction in death or severe disability in infants treated with hypothermia in the first 72 hours after birth. It has now become standard treatment in hospitals around the world.
Looking back, we really feel as if we were guided by divine providence, to learn how to use a natural protective biological mechanism that was already there at creation. I have always loved Johannes Kepler’s I thought the thoughts of God after him.
I went into neonatology because I loved children, and only later did I realize that I was in an ethical maelstrom. We’ve made incredible progress in keeping babies alive, but is it ever right to turn off the life support machine? Brain scans are getting much better at detecting brain damage shortly after birth, but what to do with the information? And how could I reconcile our ability to keep babies alive at 23 and 24 weeks’ gestation with the fact that late-term abortions are performed on more mature babies in the same hospital? I felt increasingly called to deal with these desperately difficult and controversial ethical dilemmas.
These questions are too important to be left to doctors. My goal has always been to encourage informed and thoughtful dialogue. I have always enjoyed the challenge of trying to communicate complex scientific and medical ideas to ordinary people in a way that is clear, accurate and unpretentious.
None of us can avoid the fundamental questions about what it means to be human: pregnancy, infertility, childbirth, illness, aging and death. The Covid pandemic has meant that many people have been bombarded with questionable information about treatment and immunization and I have tried to provide thoughtful, accurate and nuanced information from both a medical and Christian perspective.
My book Matters of Life and Death: Human Dilemmas in the Light of Christian Faith is an attempt to illustrate the range of challenging ethical questions that technologically advanced medicine raises and to provide thoughtful and practical answers from the perspective of the mainstream Protestant Christian woman. To my surprise, the book has been translated into more than ten languages and has appeared in many surprising places—even as a bioethics textbook at Moscow State University.
I have a personal website, johnwyatt.com which contains a wide range of resources for free download. Along with my son Tim, I publish a weekly podcast, Matters of Life and Death, under the Premier Unbelievable brand, which is available on all podcast providers.
Overall, I was encouraged by the positive responses from lay people and fellow physicians. Many people are tired of the highly polarized and toxic public debates about medical ethics and welcome a more nuanced approach. Having said that, I have occasionally been startled by hostile and aggressive verbal attacks from people who passionately disagree and clearly see me as some sort of threat. If I get attacked by people on both ends of a polarized debate, I probably got it right. . .
I’m afraid that the quality of public debate around abortion has deteriorated significantly since the 1990s. Much of this seems to come from the US, where abortion has become part of the toxic and unpleasant politics of the culture wars. It often seems as if activists on both sides are throwing verbal grenades at each other without trying to understand the other or have any dialogue or meeting of the minds; thus women with unplanned pregnancies become victims in a poisonous debate between political activists who do not seem to care much about their real interests.
The law is a very blunt instrument when it comes to dealing with a complex, emotional and multifaceted issue like abortion. I’m much more in favor of an approach that says, “Our goal is not to make abortion illegal, but to make it unthinkable. . .” The real question is why, despite universal sex education and the availability of universal free contraception, at least in the UK, the demand for abortion continues to rise.
For me, a much more positive response is that of Christian pregnancy centers who provide compassionate, non-judgmental support and counseling for women with unplanned pregnancies, including practical and emotional support for those who decide to continue the pregnancy. I am proud to be associated with the growing movement of more than 80 independent pregnancy centers in the UK.
There is absolutely no need for tension and conflict between clinical teams and parents. In my experience, most cases like Archie Battersby’s can be resolved privately with collaborative, respectful and compassionate dialogue between the parties. I tried to promote the concept of collaboration between doctors and parents among experts. Parents are also experts – in their history, family environment, philosophy and beliefs. Relationships between experts work where there is mutual respect, listening and trust. Unfortunately, a cooperative relationship like this never seems to have been established in Archie’s case.
History shows different Christian responses to the age-old questions of abortion and euthanasia, and I have always endeavored to engage carefully and respectfully with the various points of view which sincere Christians have taken on these matters, while arguing positively for the conclusions I have arrived at. Fortunately, at least in the NHS, financial cost is almost never a factor when it comes to individual ethical decisions about whether to continue or stop treatment – but of course in many low-resource countries cost issues cannot be avoided and Christian As a result, doctors often have to make agonizing treatment decisions.
AI is advancing so fast that it is impossible to predict where it is going. This certainly raises some really new and challenging ethical questions for all of us, including Christians. I think AI will become increasingly effective at simulating many of the most valuable aspects of being human, including love, compassion, empathy, friendship, and spirituality, and the question will be, “If you can’t tell if you’re engaging with a live person or a very clever simulation, does it matter?” My deep intuition as a Christian is, yes, it does matter. Truth and authenticity matter, but there are many who argue that simulated relationships are as good as real ones and the way forward in a world of single people.
I’m not an angry person by nature, but I have a deep instinct to try to respect and protect the most vulnerable members of our society, and I get angry when they are mistreated or neglected. I also get angry at doctors who seem incompetent or uncaring, because there really is no excuse for either.
I enjoy playing with little children and seeing them smile the most. Their spontaneous laughter is my favorite sound.
The covenant faithfulness and compassion of a maternal Father gives me hope — which I can see not only in the goodness of creation, but in that it is experienced day after day in human society and its people, for all their many faults.
I pray to know the heart of God better.
I would love to spend a few hours locked in a church with CS Lewis. As someone who has tried to convey Christian perspectives in a secular academic setting, I find his combination of spiritual depth, creativity, and clarity extremely compelling.
Professor Wyatt was talking to Terence Handley McMath.
[ad_2]
Source link