An excessive claim: sterilization and immediate material cooperation.

Fr. James Keenan, S.J. has recently written on the important issue of institutional cooperation and the 1994 Ethical and Religious Directives of the National Catholic Conference of Bishops. He observes that the subject of institutional cooperation has been the cause of substantial discussion among ethicists, bishops, and administrators of Catholic healthcare facilities. In an article for this journal, Keenan addresses a number of issues related to institutional cooperation and concludes his article with an examination of duress, and immediate material cooperation with regard to sterilization. In a second and shorter essay in Ethics and 1