The Torch, Spring/Summer 2010

Spring–Summer 2010 | TORCH 19 CHUWY | ISTOCKPHOTO Analyzing the health care legislation as Jesus- followers may require that we set aside what personally satisfies us. Second, we should be careful not to make our moral evaluations as followers of a political party or organization. Following Jesus may require that we get out of step with our favored political group. Of course, evaluating the new legislation would be easier were Scripture to articulate a detailed health care policy designed specifically for our American situation. Unfortunately, rigorous and sustained biblical exegesis alone won’t yield any detailed policy conclusions about matters like health care savings accounts, personal versus employer-provided insurance, single-payer public systems, or private insurance plans. But we aren’t in the dark about how Jesus would think about the legislation. Good, hard, prayerful thinking in addition to considerable communal reflection upon what Scripture does teach yields some principles we can use to morally evaluate the legislation. Here are just five such principles: 1. Good health is a basic good for all people. It’s good for people to experience good health. Typically, one’s chronic poor health compromises one’s capacity to flourish. Legislation that makes it unfeasible to attain or retain such a basic good requires extremely powerful justification. From my perspective, it’s difficult to see what qualifies as such a justification. Consequently, our moral evaluation of the health care legislation should reflect a commitment to providing suitable, affordable health care coverage to as many people as possible. 2. God cares for the welfare of the vulnerable. As Scripture indicates, a society’s treatment of the poor and the weak reveals that society’s commitment to biblical justice. Furthermore, our call to love our vulnerable neighbors is not dependent on whether they have acted responsibly. Take Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. Suppose Jesus added that the man on the road to Jericho was behaving recklessly prior to being attacked. This addition would not change the clear instruction Jesus offers in that parable. It’s true that the man should not have been personally irresponsible; but it’s still true that the religious passersby should have stopped to be his neighbor. Or take the Levitical mandate of “Do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and alien” (Lev. 23:22). Presumably, this included the irresponsible poor and alien, too. 3. Consistent pro-life advocacy is nonnegotiable. There is considerable disagreement over the interpretive matter of whether the health care legislation bars federal funds from being used to cover elective abortions. Even pro-life groups disagree over this. However, as pro-life advocates, we should also note more than the legislation’s stance on abortion; we should consider that the number of abortions performed may be reduced given health care coverage for millions more women and children. Moreover, we should care about those in our nation who may die each year unnecessarily and the thousands more whose quality of life is compromised because they lack affordable health coverage. 4. It doesn’t matter if nobody has a right to health care. But it may still be true that we should provide it. Suppose that I have a shopping cart bursting with groceries. I’m heading to the checkout line. I’m in no hurry. I see an obviously weary woman struggling to manage her groceries as well as her toddler triplets. She’s clearly headed to the same line I am. She has no right to go ahead of me, and she’s not entitled to that spot.