Disability: A Thread for Weaving Joy

Here's another excellent contribution to Public Discourse today -- Archbishop Chaput's remarks at the Cardinal O''Connor Conference on Life:  "Disability:  A Thread for Weaving Joy."  He explores with great insight the mix of suffering and joy that accompanies the experience of caring for people with Down Syndrome in our culture.  A taste:

These children with disabilities are not a burden; they’re a priceless gift to all of us. They’re a doorway to the real meaning of our humanity. Whatever suffering we endure to welcome, protect, and ennoble these special children is worth it because they’re a pathway to real hope and real joy. Abortion kills a child; it wounds a precious part of a woman’s own dignity and identity; and it steals hope. That’s why it’s wrong. That’s why it needs to end. That’s why we march.

In the recent discussions by Rick and  Robby about the organ transplant for the child with disabilities, I was struck once again by that curious paradox of our contemporary culture -- what strikes me as the deepening consensus that a disability doesn't detract from the basic dignity of a human who lives among us, along with the consensus displayed by 80% of the women who receive prenatal diagnoses of Down Syndrome that we really don't want people with disabilities living among us. 

Charles Camosy's comments about that debate intrigued me.  He was quoted as saying:

"Everyone deserves an equal chance to these organs, regardless of your mental capacity," said Charles Camosy, a professor of Christian Ethics at Fordham University.

Camosy said that while it's true that there are shortages of kidneys and other organs, the criteria used to make transplant decisions "should not ever devalue those that are mentally disabled."

"This is a growing movement that transcends liberal or conservative that says this kind of life, because it's so vulnerable, it deserves special protection," he said.

In the mix of considerations for organ transplants, he almost seems to be suggesting that we ought to give a preference to the most vulnerable.  Is there any argument for a 'preferential option for the vulnerable' that might be as compelling as the preferential option for the poor?  And, this leads me to a different question.  Do Catholic hospitals incorporate a preferential option for the poor in their considerations about who should get any organ transplant (leaving aside the issue of disability)?  Should they?