Natality and the Sacredness of Interdependence
Travis Pickell, PhD, MDiv, Assistant Professor of Theology & Ethics, George Fox University
Recent work in public bioethics has noted the importance of Christian anthropology, and, specifically, attention to the connection between human dignity and human vulnerability, for policy debates regarding abortion law, end-of-life care, and research ethics (Camosy, 2021, Snead, 2020). Of course, theological notions of human persons and personhood are common ways of resisting perceived dehumanization within institutionalized medicine and public bioethics. These approaches often emphasize the sanctity of human life and uphold the sacredness of the individual. This framework is extremely useful for certain situations (e.g., protecting the value of individuals who participate in clinical research), but has ambiguous implications for others. For example, in the case of abortion, such an emphasis seems to pit the value of one life against another, without thereby clarifying the relationship between the two. Or with respect to end-of-life ethics, emphasizing the sacredness of an individual does not clarify, for example, the best way to conclude the matter of how best to demonstrate fidelity to that person as he or she dies.
This paper suggests we approach the matter at a slightly different angle. It suggests that in addition to discussions of sacredness of a particular human life, we ought also to attend to how certain relationships constitute zones of sacredness. Candidates for such sacred relationships include the patient-physician/nurse relationship or the relationships between members of a caregiving team. In these contexts an encounter may occur that breaks down one or more party’s “buffered self” and allows for porousness and exchange between selves through the dynamic interplay of vulnerability and care. Perhaps the quintessential relationship of this sort is the relationship experienced in natality--the giving birth to another. The deeply interdependent relationship between mother and child, even in pregnancy, is sacred precisely in the interpenetration of two selves. In her poignant memoir, Motherhood: A Confession (2020), theologian Natalie Carnes demonstrates how not only does the child receive life and safety from the mother, but the child also gives to the mother on a physiological level while in utero. The birthing room is one place in the hospital where language of the “sacred” regularly finds a home. I suggest that this is because the deeply interconnected and interdependent nature of the relationship itself provides a clue to human relationality more generally, and draw on a number of Christian thinkers to demonstrate the roots of this ideal within Christian theology and anthropology. I conclude suggesting some implications for clinical medicine and for public bioethics.
This paper suggests we approach the matter at a slightly different angle. It suggests that in addition to discussions of sacredness of a particular human life, we ought also to attend to how certain relationships constitute zones of sacredness. Candidates for such sacred relationships include the patient-physician/nurse relationship or the relationships between members of a caregiving team. In these contexts an encounter may occur that breaks down one or more party’s “buffered self” and allows for porousness and exchange between selves through the dynamic interplay of vulnerability and care. Perhaps the quintessential relationship of this sort is the relationship experienced in natality--the giving birth to another. The deeply interdependent relationship between mother and child, even in pregnancy, is sacred precisely in the interpenetration of two selves. In her poignant memoir, Motherhood: A Confession (2020), theologian Natalie Carnes demonstrates how not only does the child receive life and safety from the mother, but the child also gives to the mother on a physiological level while in utero. The birthing room is one place in the hospital where language of the “sacred” regularly finds a home. I suggest that this is because the deeply interconnected and interdependent nature of the relationship itself provides a clue to human relationality more generally, and draw on a number of Christian thinkers to demonstrate the roots of this ideal within Christian theology and anthropology. I conclude suggesting some implications for clinical medicine and for public bioethics.