Radical equality, mentally handicapped people, and organ transplants

Thanks to Rick for calling attention to the story of the mentally handicapped child who may be disfavored for a kidney transplant simply because of her handicap.  And bravo to Rick for identifying the principle that would be violated by discrimination against the child on the basis of that handicap:  the radical equality of human beings.  Bravo, too, to my friend Art Caplan, the distinguished bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, for his wise and precise moral analysis of the subject:  http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/17/10175611-bioethicist-transplant-denial-for-mentally-disabled-child-raises-questions.  Art is not generally regarded as a friend of the pro-life cause, but pro-lifers will be cheering him on this one.  His bottom line:  "There are reasons why anyone with an intellectual or physical disability might not be considered a good candidate for a transplant.  But those reasons, to be ethical, have to be linked to the chance of making the transplant succeed. Otherwise they are not reasons, they are only biases."  Amen, brother.

If there is a principle that can truly be said to be at the heart of the Christian understanding morality, surely it is the radical equality of every member of the human family as a creature fashioned in the very image and likeness of God.  Each of us, regardless of race, sex, ethnicity, and the like, but also irrespective of age, size, stage of development, and intellectual or physical ability, is the bearer of profound, inherent, and equal dignity.  No one is inherently superior or inferior in fundamental worth to anyone else. One needn't be a Christian (or a religious believer of any stripe) to grasp that great and central truth about our human condition--think of the witness given to it by the great pro-life journalist and social critic Nat Hentoff, for example; but if one does happen to be a Christian, it should be impossible not to understand and affirm it.