Teresa Collett, J.D. is professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, where she serves as director of the school's Prolife Center. As a well-known advocate for the protection of human life and the family, Collett specializes in the subjects of marriage, religion, and bioethics in her research. Collett has published numerous legal articles on parental involvement laws and has testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as before legislative committees in several states on this topic. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and is a member of the Federalist Society's Executive Committee on Religious Liberties.
This article outlines the provisions of pending Vermont legislation requiring parental notificati... more This article outlines the provisions of pending Vermont legislation requiring parental notification prior to the performance of an abortion on a minor. It describes the current national consensus in favor of parental involvement laws, and examines the arguments relating to the proposed passage of this law. The article reviews the federal cases addressing the constitutionality of parental involvement laws, as well as cases regarding parental involvement in other medical decisions. It examines the arguments of supporters and opponents of the Vermont legislation, and concludes that parental notification laws benefit minors through improved medical care and protection from sexual assault. The inclusion of a judicial bypass procedure insures the availability of a safe and effective means of protecting the few minors for whom parental involvement is not appropriate.
Interest of Amici (1) Amici are physicians, philosophers, and law professors engaged in the study... more Interest of Amici (1) Amici are physicians, philosophers, and law professors engaged in the study and teaching of bioethics. Each supports the conclusion of the Attorney General of the United States that assisting suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose," and in fact undermines the foundational commitment of medicine to healing and the promotion of human health. The signatories also strongly support improved pain management and palliative care for terminally ill patients, and believe that condoning the "quick fix" of physician-assisted suicide will undermine society's commitment to the more difficult but infinitely more rewarding task of meeting patients' real needs. Summary of Argument Amici seek to place before the court the historical record and current professional consensus that assisting suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose" for use of federally-controlled drugs. Assisting suicide is antithetical to the proper conduct of a physician in the "usual course of his professional practice." See 21 C.F.R. [section] 1306.04(2001). Medical treatment has as its ultimate end the restoration or preservation of the patient's health and the relief of suffering, not the termination of the patient's life. The public's health, their confidence in the beneficence of the medical profession, and the foundational ethos of the medical profession would be profoundly eroded by recognition of physician assisted suicide as a legitimate medical treatment. Argument I. The Proper End of Medicine is Restoration and Preservation of Health and Relief of Suffering, Not Termination of Life. The profession of medicine is distinguished from other human activities, including other professions, by virtue of the good or goods to which its practitioners publicly profess devotion. Lawyers profess devotion to "a belief in the ability of human beings to communicate with each other by means of rational argument ... a belief that human beings can arrange their affairs fairly ... [and] a belief in the value of purposeful process." John T. Noonan, Jr., Choice of a Profession, 21 Pepp. L. Rev. 381,383 (1994). Theologians profess a belief in the existence of God and the human capacity to attain some understanding of God's nature. Physicians profess devotion to human health and healing, "a naturally given although precarious standard or norm, characterized by `wholeness' and `well-working,' toward which the living body moves on its own." Leon R. Kass, "I Will Give No Deadly Drug," in The Case against Assisted Suicide: for the Right to End-of-Life Care (Kathleen Foley & Herbert Hendlin, eds. 2002) at 21. This devotion to health and healing necessarily requires the cultivation of particular virtues, such as self-restraint, patience and sympathy. Id. More to the point, devotion to health and healing sets certain limits on the physician's conduct, chief among which is the prohibition against physicians killing or helping to kill their patients. The prohibition against killing patients, the first negative promise of self-restraint sworn to in the Hippocratic Oath, stands as medicine's first and most abiding taboo.... The deepest ethical principle restraining the physician's power is neither the autonomy and freedom of the patient nor the physician's own compassion or good intention. Rather, it is the dignity and mysterious power of human life itself, and, therefore, also what the [Hippocratic] Oath calls purity and holiness of the life and art to which the physician has sworn devotion. A person can choose to be a physician but cannot simply choose what physicianship means. Id. at 32. The essence of the medical profession lies in its fundamental commitment to the preservation of human life and health. This commitment precludes inclusion of assisting suicide within the list of activities that constitute "legitimate medical practice. …
As a faculty member at a Catholic law school for the past seventeen years, I have often been frus... more As a faculty member at a Catholic law school for the past seventeen years, I have often been frustrated with the inability of many professors and administrators at Catholic law schools to describe what makes a law school “Catholic.” As Professors Breen and Strang report in A Light Unseen: A History of Catholic Legal Education in the United States, too often the description is limited to something like “a commitment to social justice,” or “inculcating a strong sense of professional ethics.” Yet as the authors observe, “Catholic law schools do not have a monopoly on or even a special claim to caring for the poor or promoting professional virtue.” Breen and Strang trace how we got to this place and propose an ambitious path to the “Light Unseen.” Breen and Strang propose to create a jurisprudence grounded in Catholic social thought and human anthropology, and thus imbue Catholic law schools with a strong Catholic identity. As the co-editor of a collection of essays seeking to incorporate Catholic anthropology into American law, I fully support the authors’ proposal. I also appreciate the care with which they have built their case that such a project is necessary to avoid the continuing secularization of most Catholic law schools—secularization that both scandalizes and discourages many faithful Catholics. My focus, however, is not to reargue the case for the creation of such jurisprudence, but to explore the capacity to initiate such a project within existing Catholic law schools given the current state of the American legal professoriate. While I will not go so far as to say a spiritual awakening and enthusiasm for the Breen Strang project is impossible at most Catholic law schools, I believe such an awakening and project will require fervent prayer, God’s favor, and skillful committed leadership by both clergy and lay professionals.
This essay reflects upon the overwhelming trend of secularization in American Catholic higher edu... more This essay reflects upon the overwhelming trend of secularization in American Catholic higher education that has led to colleges and universities largely abandoning their liberal arts heritage for a more “instrumentalist” approach to education. This trend is part of what Pope Benedict XVI has identified as the “crisis of cultures” where Western concepts of reason are increasingly detached from their cultural and spiritual roots, resulting in an inability to speak to anything beyond the material world and our current understanding of it. I argue that we must resist the operational atheism that afflicts most American education, including many schools that are identified as religiously-affiliated. This atheism results resulting in what Pope Emeritus Benedict has called “the presumed completeness and use of liberty as the ‘criterion of everything else.’” This absolutizing of liberty with no higher moral criterion leaves us unable to address pressing problems as a community and specifically excludes an contribution from communities of faith.
This article outlines the provisions of pending Vermont legislation requiring parental notificati... more This article outlines the provisions of pending Vermont legislation requiring parental notification prior to the performance of an abortion on a minor. It describes the current national consensus in favor of parental involvement laws, and examines the arguments relating to the proposed passage of this law. The article reviews the federal cases addressing the constitutionality of parental involvement laws, as well as cases regarding parental involvement in other medical decisions. It examines the arguments of supporters and opponents of the Vermont legislation, and concludes that parental notification laws benefit minors through improved medical care and protection from sexual assault. The inclusion of a judicial bypass procedure insures the availability of a safe and effective means of protecting the few minors for whom parental involvement is not appropriate.
Interest of Amici (1) Amici are physicians, philosophers, and law professors engaged in the study... more Interest of Amici (1) Amici are physicians, philosophers, and law professors engaged in the study and teaching of bioethics. Each supports the conclusion of the Attorney General of the United States that assisting suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose," and in fact undermines the foundational commitment of medicine to healing and the promotion of human health. The signatories also strongly support improved pain management and palliative care for terminally ill patients, and believe that condoning the "quick fix" of physician-assisted suicide will undermine society's commitment to the more difficult but infinitely more rewarding task of meeting patients' real needs. Summary of Argument Amici seek to place before the court the historical record and current professional consensus that assisting suicide is not a "legitimate medical purpose" for use of federally-controlled drugs. Assisting suicide is antithetical to the proper conduct of a physician in the "usual course of his professional practice." See 21 C.F.R. [section] 1306.04(2001). Medical treatment has as its ultimate end the restoration or preservation of the patient's health and the relief of suffering, not the termination of the patient's life. The public's health, their confidence in the beneficence of the medical profession, and the foundational ethos of the medical profession would be profoundly eroded by recognition of physician assisted suicide as a legitimate medical treatment. Argument I. The Proper End of Medicine is Restoration and Preservation of Health and Relief of Suffering, Not Termination of Life. The profession of medicine is distinguished from other human activities, including other professions, by virtue of the good or goods to which its practitioners publicly profess devotion. Lawyers profess devotion to "a belief in the ability of human beings to communicate with each other by means of rational argument ... a belief that human beings can arrange their affairs fairly ... [and] a belief in the value of purposeful process." John T. Noonan, Jr., Choice of a Profession, 21 Pepp. L. Rev. 381,383 (1994). Theologians profess a belief in the existence of God and the human capacity to attain some understanding of God's nature. Physicians profess devotion to human health and healing, "a naturally given although precarious standard or norm, characterized by `wholeness' and `well-working,' toward which the living body moves on its own." Leon R. Kass, "I Will Give No Deadly Drug," in The Case against Assisted Suicide: for the Right to End-of-Life Care (Kathleen Foley & Herbert Hendlin, eds. 2002) at 21. This devotion to health and healing necessarily requires the cultivation of particular virtues, such as self-restraint, patience and sympathy. Id. More to the point, devotion to health and healing sets certain limits on the physician's conduct, chief among which is the prohibition against physicians killing or helping to kill their patients. The prohibition against killing patients, the first negative promise of self-restraint sworn to in the Hippocratic Oath, stands as medicine's first and most abiding taboo.... The deepest ethical principle restraining the physician's power is neither the autonomy and freedom of the patient nor the physician's own compassion or good intention. Rather, it is the dignity and mysterious power of human life itself, and, therefore, also what the [Hippocratic] Oath calls purity and holiness of the life and art to which the physician has sworn devotion. A person can choose to be a physician but cannot simply choose what physicianship means. Id. at 32. The essence of the medical profession lies in its fundamental commitment to the preservation of human life and health. This commitment precludes inclusion of assisting suicide within the list of activities that constitute "legitimate medical practice. …
As a faculty member at a Catholic law school for the past seventeen years, I have often been frus... more As a faculty member at a Catholic law school for the past seventeen years, I have often been frustrated with the inability of many professors and administrators at Catholic law schools to describe what makes a law school “Catholic.” As Professors Breen and Strang report in A Light Unseen: A History of Catholic Legal Education in the United States, too often the description is limited to something like “a commitment to social justice,” or “inculcating a strong sense of professional ethics.” Yet as the authors observe, “Catholic law schools do not have a monopoly on or even a special claim to caring for the poor or promoting professional virtue.” Breen and Strang trace how we got to this place and propose an ambitious path to the “Light Unseen.” Breen and Strang propose to create a jurisprudence grounded in Catholic social thought and human anthropology, and thus imbue Catholic law schools with a strong Catholic identity. As the co-editor of a collection of essays seeking to incorporate Catholic anthropology into American law, I fully support the authors’ proposal. I also appreciate the care with which they have built their case that such a project is necessary to avoid the continuing secularization of most Catholic law schools—secularization that both scandalizes and discourages many faithful Catholics. My focus, however, is not to reargue the case for the creation of such jurisprudence, but to explore the capacity to initiate such a project within existing Catholic law schools given the current state of the American legal professoriate. While I will not go so far as to say a spiritual awakening and enthusiasm for the Breen Strang project is impossible at most Catholic law schools, I believe such an awakening and project will require fervent prayer, God’s favor, and skillful committed leadership by both clergy and lay professionals.
This essay reflects upon the overwhelming trend of secularization in American Catholic higher edu... more This essay reflects upon the overwhelming trend of secularization in American Catholic higher education that has led to colleges and universities largely abandoning their liberal arts heritage for a more “instrumentalist” approach to education. This trend is part of what Pope Benedict XVI has identified as the “crisis of cultures” where Western concepts of reason are increasingly detached from their cultural and spiritual roots, resulting in an inability to speak to anything beyond the material world and our current understanding of it. I argue that we must resist the operational atheism that afflicts most American education, including many schools that are identified as religiously-affiliated. This atheism results resulting in what Pope Emeritus Benedict has called “the presumed completeness and use of liberty as the ‘criterion of everything else.’” This absolutizing of liberty with no higher moral criterion leaves us unable to address pressing problems as a community and specifically excludes an contribution from communities of faith.
Uploads