Conference examines natural moral law, its place in doctors' practice

Published: 2006-11-07

BOSTON (CNS) -- Reason can lead all people to understand the natural moral law, according to speakers at this year's 75th annual conference of the Catholic Medical Association Oct. 26-28 in Boston. The conference, with the theme of "The Natural Moral Law: God's Gift to Humanity," focused on the universal ethical principles in medical practice. John M. Hass, a bioethicist and president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, said the church teaches that contraceptives are intrinsically evil because of natural law. Contraceptives treat fertility as a defect, and it is unreasonable to treat a good as if it were an evil, he said. "While we are under no obligation to realize all goods of which we are capable, we are obligated never to act against a good as though it were an evil," he said.

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