The notion of human dignity is, by all means, central to the medical practice in terms of providing quality care regardless of one’s appearance or moral attributes. As far as the Christian perspective of care is concerned, one of the primary notions is the idea that every human being is created in the likeness of God, or imago Dei (Grand Canyon University, 2020). Because of this, it is believed that the human existence created by God gives people the ability to exercise the service of God to assist and do good on a daily basis. Indeed, the whole implication of medical practice supports the idea that human beings are designed in the likeness of God in order to provide assistance.
However, another implication of the imago Dei idea is the fact that every human being created by God has autonomy and moral dignity that cannot be disrupted or taken away by anyone else (Grand Canyon University, 2020). In the sphere of clinical practice, it encourages practitioners to respect the patients’ dignity and autonomy when providing assistance, as their primary goal is to help people recover from disease for them to continue exercising their mission on earth.
However, while constantly evolving, the existing model of clinical practice presents a variety of ethical challenges for health care, including the processes of terminating life such as euthanasia and abortion, or “artificial” creation of life with the help of in-vitro fertilization or surrogate. In my opinion, the complexity of modern society allows for the critical evaluation of medical practice, including various ethical appraisals of a situation, putting the actor in the center.
For this reason, it may be concluded that the concept of imago Dei should be used in medical practice in order to emphasize the importance of autonomy and human dignity but not to control human actions through the lens of religious and spiritual dogmas. While it is difficult to describe the scope or complexity of modern society, it is of paramount importance to take it into account when helping people in their decision to exercise their autonomy.
Reference
Grand Canyon University. (2020). Practicing dignity: An introduction to Christian values and decision making in health care. Web.