What a mess. What a God-awful mess the new reproductive technologies in general—and commercial surrogacy, in particular—are making of family life. What a legal, emotional, and moral mess. Case in point: A commercial surrogacy contract was litigated in Tennessee all the way to the state’s Supreme Court—which was forced to sort out the chaos that […]
40 Days for Life is a grassroots effort. Even as the campaign continues to grow, our headquarters team tries to visit as many 40 Days for Life locations as possible. It’s important for us to meet with you, and your fellow volunteers, at your prayerful vigil. With 297 cities in 11 countries conducting 40 Days […]
Last week doctors in Sweden announced the birth of a baby after a uterus transplant. The baby is so far healthy being born at only 31 weeks gestation. I am very happy that mother and baby are healthy enough to leave the hospital and I wish them continued health. I also wish that this procedure […]
Helen Keller was deaf and blind from early childhood, yet she became one of the great humanitarians of the 20th Century. When news of her death in 1968 came over the radio, I remember my father said, “There goes a great person.” I was fifteen years old at the time and too self-absorbed to care […]
In 2013 the Texas legislature passed, and Governor Rick Perry signed, enormously significant pro-life legislation that helps to protect the unborn child and the health of the mother of the unborn child. The law prohibits the killing of the unborn after 20 weeks gestation, requires any physician performing abortions at abortion facilities in the State […]
Dear Anthony, I’m getting married soon and I wanted to find out exactly how NFP works, since that’s what the Church recommends. I have saved myself for my husband and remained pure. I want to enjoy sex without the worries of getting pregnant right away. I want my husband to enjoy sex too, so NFP […]
We are not to lose hope even in the face of the nightly evening news. We have Jesus and all the treasures of the Catholic Church. And on October 7, we have the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, also known as Our Lady of Victory. This feast is not just an example that […]
The words “Contraception is a pillar in reducing adolescent pregnancy rates” sound eerily like a promotional ad by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. But that is not where these words are found. Rather, they are part of the introduction to a new policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The policy statement goes on […]
The Vatican accused a UN committee of intolerance against Christians and interfering with the free exercise of religion in a scathing reply to a UN committee released to the press last Friday. The Vatican’s official response to explosive comments made by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child earlier this year, which told […]
The news reports about volleyball coach Tricia Roos and her personal struggle touch the heart because of the example of her young family during a very trying time. Roos coaches the girls’ volleyball team at Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas, Texas. This young woman, pregnant with her second child, was advised to abort her preborn […]
Many people are not aware that there are already about two dozen kids in the United States that have been genetically modified. A recent headline exclaims that “The World’s First Genetically Modified Babies Will Graduate High School This Year.” This is true.Nearly 2 decades ago, Dr. Jacques Cohen of the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and […]
Funny, talented, wealthy, generous, admired people aren’t supposed to want to die. People are supposed to live beyond the age of 63, Robin Williams’ age when he died August 11. People aren’t supposed to die by suicide. Yet, Williams is no different from thousands of other Americans who die that way. More than 39,000 people […]
Despite our vigilance, the dissolution of the marriage ethic and the chaos that it creates have arrived on our doorstep. We live in an America that has become unmoored from nature and reality, where justice and mercy have been rejected and self-serving pleasure reigns. Living in a state where the spurious “marriage” of homosexuals remains […]
The Guttmacher Institute recently announced a study saying that as of 2012, 40% of pregnancies worldwide are unintended, and that this is not much different from 2008. Predictably, they also say that these “findings highlight [the] need for increased investment in contraceptive services.” Let’s break this down point by point: 1) What is “unintended,” exactly? The paper helpfully provides […]
I am a daughter of aging parents. While I don’t know the day or the hour, I know that the time is coming when I will need to walk with them on their final journey home. Death is part of life, and as a Catholic, I understand that it is the doorway to a different […]
My wife, LaRee, never knew her maternal grandmother: Her name was Dora and she suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Dora was institutionalized in a mental hospital in 1932 at 34 years of age. Eighty-two years ago the shame and stigma of having a family member in a mental institution was so great that few people in the family […]
Physician-assisted suicide, much like abortion and same-sex marriage, has become something of a cultural bellwether. Support for the right to end your own life indicates that you are a progressive-minded, compassionate person sensitive to the unique feelings and experiences of individuals facing terminal illness or chronic pain. It means you value the right of self-determination, […]
On the first Sunday in October every year Life Chain invites people in every city, town and village in North America to stand on a designated local sidewalk and spend 60 to 90 minutes in silent prayer for the pre-born and for an end to abortion. This year’s Life Chain, the 27th annual public witness […]
A year from now, believers from around the world will gather with the Pope in Philadelphia to celebrate God’s gift of the family. Marked by the theme Love is our Mission: The Family Fully Alive, this will be the Eighth World Meeting of Families. Established by Saint John Paul II, these regular world gatherings began […]
“This is the first time I’ve had no need of tranquillizers ahead of a board meeting,” the head of the UN Population Fund joked. The executive board of the UN Population Fund met last week to oversee the activities of the $1 billion dollar population agency and approve new country programs. The head of the […]
The British Parliament is currently considering the legalization of assisted suicide. The act under consideration was introduced by Lord Falconer and eschews the term “suicide,” preferring instead the euphemism “assisted dying.” Under current British law outlined in the 1961 Suicide Act, it is a crime to encourage or assist another in the act of suicide. […]
Abortion is nowhere near becoming a human right in international law. But you would not know that from what one UN committee tells governments. C-Fam has updated a list of abuses by the committee that monitors the UN women’s treaty. The list shows over 275 instances where committee members have told countries that abortion should […]
Fecundophobia has swept the nation by storm. Actually it has slowly dulled the senses of far too many people by demonizing any idea that a family is composed of a father, mother, and children. Here is how one enemy of the family defines fecundophobia. During the 2012 election cycle, Washington Post writer Lisa Miller wrote […]
So Why is the Wife of Microsoft Founder Raising Billions to Inject Them with Depo-Provera? Surely, Mrs. Gates would not have chosen this course if she knew the serious risks of Depo-Provera and if anyone—her Catholic parents, her Catholic high school teachers at the Ursuline Academy in Dallas or her parish priests (she attends Mass […]
