The Christian Vanguard

The following is a paper I wrote for my medical ethics class. The topic is lying. I had about 20 footnotes, but a simple copy-paste action won't carry those over, so, I'm not claiming to be original here or anything.  In this paper I will argue that lying to a patient is wrong because lying simpliciter is always wrong. This will be distinguished from other acts, such as reservation and deceit, in which the patient does not receive the truth but may be permissible. Cases will be considered which it may seem beneficial to lie to the patient and to lie for the patient. I will be drawing from St. Thomas Aquinas and other philosophers that interact with the Thomist tradition.  I begin with the assumption that man is a rational animal. That man is a kind of animal is not controversial, for the whole field of medical science deals with the reality of that animality, and how to treat it. That man is also rational also seems to be uncontroversial as shown by the medical fields...

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it finally caught up to me. Shoving my face with burgers and pizza has given me high blood pressure, and after seeing the doctor because of a two week long headache, he told me I was in danger of a stroke and now I am medicated. I wish to use this opportunity to make a few cheap and easy points about sin. 1) Sin, like High Blood Pressure, can be silent but deadly. In the last year or so, I've had some pretty bad headaches/hypertension. Pain on the top of my head as well as on the back of my neck. But I thought I could sleep it off, and it was usually gone within a day with some sleep. In the moment, I would think, "Aw man, I really need to cut back on the sugar and salt" and I wouldn't take in anything that day, but then when it went away, I felt invincible again, and next think you know, I'm taking home twelve hamburger patties from my friend David's wedding, wondering if I can have a normal relationship with a woman and be he...