All Too Human

JOSEPH F. FLETCHER died the other day. Most Americans will not recognize the name, but they live under the influence. The heading of the obituary in our parish newspaper called him a “pioneer in the field of medical ethics.” He was that, and much more. With the publication of Situation Ethics in 1966, he became a lasting point of reference in the sundry moral revolutions with which our times have been favored.

Fletcher was a very progressive man throughout his 86 years. Our political culture is only now catching up with the merits of active euthanasia, a cause he championed forty years ago. We are probably still not ready, not quite ready, for the forced sterilization of those whom we deem unfit to procreate. Fletcher’s wife of sixty years, Forrest Hatfield, worked closely with Margaret Sanger, patron saint of Planned Parenthood, and he shared fully their enthusiasm for ridding us of the burden of the genetic bearers of social parasitism. In matters moral, Fletcher had little patience with general rules derived from reason or revelation. As for tradition, the word was synonymous with obsolescence. Situation ethics meant that one should “do the loving thing” in the situation at hand. In only slightly vulgarized form this was taken to mean “do your own thing,” since most people think that what they love to do is the loving thing to do.

RJ

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Richard John Neuhaus

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JOSEPH F. FLETCHER died the other day. Most Americans will not recognize the name, but they live under the influence. The heading of the obituary in our parish newspaper called him a “pioneer in the field of medical ethics.” He was that, and much more. With the publication of Situation Ethics in 1966, he became a lasting point of reference in the sundry moral revolutions with which our times have been favored.

Fletcher was a very progressive man throughout his 86 years. Our political culture is only now catching up with the merits of active euthanasia, a cause he championed forty years ago. We are probably still not ready, not quite ready, for the forced sterilization of those whom we deem unfit to procreate. Fletcher’s wife of sixty years, Forrest Hatfield, worked closely with Margaret Sanger, patron saint of Planned Parenthood, and he shared fully their enthusiasm for ridding us of the burden of the genetic bearers of social parasitism. In matters moral, Fletcher had little patience with general rules derived from reason or revelation. As for tradition, the word was synonymous with obsolescence. Situation ethics meant that one should “do the loving thing” in the situation at hand. In only slightly vulgarized form this was taken to mean “do your own thing,” since most people think that what they love to do is the loving thing to do.