A husband and wife are called to give themselves to each other completely and unreservedly, and to accept each other unconditionally in the marital embrace. Every child of theirs, whether entering the world with a handicap or not, is an expression and fruit of themselves and their acceptance of each other.
Read MoreBecause the recommendations of the committee relate to important aspects of human behavior and sexuality at formative ages for children and adolescents, parents need to look at the psychological and social messages they might be conveying by choosing to vaccinate their children against HPV.
Read MoreShe wondered whether it would still be allowable for her to engage in marital relations with her husband after the vasectomy. When one spouse is involved in this so-called ‘abuse of matrimony,’ the other is placed in an awkward situation
Read MoreNot much reflection is needed to realize the serious injustice involved in forcefully ‘crystallizing’ another human being. The freezing and thawing process itself subjects embryonic humans to significant risk, and up to fifty percent of embryos do not survive the process.
Read MoreThe physician's boldness and unflagging concern for his patient played an important role in bringing Christ into a situation where His healing graces were needed, where even the priest alone probably could not have succeeded.
Read MoreEven if we have genes that predispose us towards certain behaviors, we still have a space of freedom within ourselves, and do not have to engage in those behaviors. Our genes may impel us strongly in certain behavioral directions, but they can't compel us.
Read MoreThe fact remains that the Catholic Church to date has expressed no official doubts about brain death, emphasizing instead that a health care worker can use neurological criteria as the basis for arriving at ‘moral certainty’ that death has occurred.
Read MoreIn natural family planning, on the other hand, they are not directing any countermeasures towards the fertility of a specific conjugal act; the natural order and telos of the act is respected.
Read MoreSome helpful ‘principles of cooperation’ have been developed over the centuries in the Catholic moral tradition as a way of discerning how properly to avoid, limit, or distance ourselves from evil, especially intrinsically evil actions.
Read MoreThe real costs of this kind of surgery remind us of the importance of making a right and ethical decision for our circumstances. Although there is a heightened probability of disease, there is never any guarantee that a particular woman with the BRCA mutation will develop cancer.
Read More…suffering can make us bitter or it can make us better, depending upon how we respond to it and use it to enter into deeper union with the Lord who suffered and died a hard death for us.
Read MoreMaking up our own morality as we go along has a certain appeal, of course, because it allows us to circumnavigate some of the hard ethical answers that might require us to change our own behavior or outlook.
Read More…either one discards the embryos or one destroys them in the laboratory to obtain miraculous cures for diseases. An important third option is often not even mentioned: namely, that we continue to store the embryos in their current, frozen state as part of our moral duty to care for our own offspring.
Read More…approaching our own mortality with a greater dose of realism helps us make better decisions about when to roll back the medical interventions and focus our energies on preparing for death.
Read MoreWhen our ability to think rationally or choose freely becomes clouded or even eliminated by dementia, we still remain at root the kind of creature who is rational and free, and the bearer of inalienable human dignity.
Read MoreIn a way, then, embryonic stem cells have become a great modern secular fairy-tale, even a kind of surrogate for our yearning for immortality.
Read More…subtle psychological burdens may be placed upon children born from donor sperm as they subjectively struggle with broken or absent relationships, and experience a sense of being a “commodity” or an “object” because of how they were created.
Read MoreBy always repudiating the direct killing of the innocent, and acknowledging that this represents an exceptionless norm, we set in place the framework to safeguard human dignity at its root.
Read MoreLiving beings, with all their structure and complexity, should never cease to impress us and inspire us with a certain awe, so that ...we might avoid reducing life itself to a mere commodity to be conquered by our biotechnical prowess.
Read MoreState-facilitated salvaging of organs in the absence of explicit consent undercuts the essential character of organ donations as a gift.
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