This kind of confused language about allowing people to “define their identity” ignores the crucially important truth that numerous aspects of our identity, especially those related to our bodily and sexual identity, are pre-determined, objective goods...
Read More… if the egg harvesting step could be carried out with low risk to women, if the egg freezing process would not cause any deleterious effects on children who might later come into being, and if the eggs were only used for morally legitimate purposes like LTOT, freezing a woman’s eggs would appear to be morally allowable.
Read MoreChoosing not to eat or drink can be packaged as a noble and well-intentioned way to avoid intense pain and suffering, but VSED ultimately represents a flawed choice. It subtly draws us into the mistake of treating the objective good of our life as if it were an evil to be quelled or extinguished.
Read MoreIt should be obvious how any approach that weakens or casts into question the integral connection between parents and their offspring will raise grave ethical concerns.
Read More… women were able to carry their pregnancies to term after receiving an intramuscular injection of progesterone. Since 2012, dozens of other women have successfully reversed their chemical abortions.
Read MoreSome patients may have tried diligently for years to lose weight, while others may have made only cursory, poorly-supported efforts. The need for support is also likely to continue following bariatric surgery or after the implantation of a stomach pacemaker.
Read MoreCompassionately attending to the needs of the elderly draws generations together and builds solidarity.
Read More…the specific circumstances of both the donor and recipient are crucial in discerning the ethical appropriate-ness of this unusual procedure.
Read MoreYet in the face of a terminal medical diagnosis, it is not reasonable to let our fears dictate our choices; instead it behooves us to confront and resolve those fears without yielding to panic and without allowing unpleasant future scenarios to loom large in our imagination.
Read MoreMarriage, in fact, is the “primordial first institution,” flowing out of the intimate and creative union of male and female. It… is essentially ordered towards creating and caring for the future in the form of the next generation.
Read MoreAs a set of standing medical orders, the POLST approach is inflexible. Straightforwardly following orders created outside of a particular situation may be ill-advised, improper and even harmful to the patient.
Read MoreThe pregnancy itself would be brought about by a new and different set of causes, whereby the mechanical actions of a technician would substitute for, and thus violate, the intimate and exclusive bond of the marital act.
Read MoreRespect for our own progeny, then, will have the obvious consequence that human embryos should not be generated in the laboratory for premeditated destruction, nor for cellular cannibalization by scientists.
Read MorePart of the unethical character of drug abuse flows from the fact that we are treating something good, namely our personal, conscious experience as if it were an evil to be avoided.
Read MoreThe remarkable tools becoming available not only for genetic therapies but also for human enhancement projects and embryonic manipulation raise daunting ethical concerns about the subjugation of man to his own technology....
Read MoreEven though a reversal may not be feasible or obligatory, the repentant couple may nonetheless become aware of the need to order their sexual activity and appetites in the face of their original sterilization decision and its extended consequences.
Read MoreIt remains the better part of wisdom to discriminate, in the moral sense of the term, between disordered uses of human sexuality and the ordered engagement of human sexuality within marriage.
Read MoreWouldn’t a mother, carrying a child in her womb, and having expended so much effort to foster that new life, naturally want to offer her child this opportunity to live, even after her own death?
Read MoreIn reflecting on the specifics..we begin to appreciate the importance of never subjecting an innocent third party, whether a musician or an in utero child, to direct lethal harm simply because they find themselves in a state of radical dependence upon another human being.
Read MoreThe application of Catholic moral teaching to this issue is therefore directed toward two important and specific ends: first, the complete avoidance of directly killing the child, and, second, the preservation of the lives of both mother and child to the extent possible under the circumstances.
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