Category: Life Issues & Bioethics

Franciscan University of Steubenville Drops Student Health Plan Over HHS Mandate
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Franciscan University of Steubenville Drops Student Health Plan Over HHS Mandate

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Catholic religious leaders have warned that religious institutions may be forced to stop providing health care coverage if the Department of Health and Human Services does not change its mandate to provide contraceptives, including abortifacients, as part of their health care plans. Yeseterday, the first Catholic university has followed through by dropping its health care […]

Catholic Confusion on Enhancements
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Catholic Confusion on Enhancements

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I have to confess that I am a bit disheartened.  I find that my fellow Catholics are having trouble really connecting with the Church’s teaching regarding genetic engineering.  Some very smart, thoughtful and faithful Catholics are having difficulty with the distinction between gene therapy, which is genetic engineering to fix a genetic pathology, and genetic […]

The Controversial Faith of Barack Obama
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The Controversial Faith of Barack Obama

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President Obama’s recent statement on gay marriage has again thrust his religious views onto the front pages. In defending his position, Obama stressed that he and his wife were “practicing Christians” and that his stance was supported by Christ’s teaching of the Golden Rule. Since his quest to win the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois […]

Why You Don’t Have to Use NFP
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Why You Don’t Have to Use NFP

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{disclaimer: I realize that NFP is not always used to avoid pregnancy, but can also be used for medical awareness and to help achieve pregnancy. For purposes of this article I am referring to NFP used as “periodic continence”, that is, to avoid pregnancy.} There is a faction of Catholics who, in their desire to […]

Catholic Bishops Question Girl Scouts Programs
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Catholic Bishops Question Girl Scouts Programs

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The Girl Scouts have been criticized for years for its leadership pulling the wholesome organization into the trendy world of sexual and gender activism. The piecemeal flare-ups accumulated until, in 2010, revelation of one incident at the UN (in this Friday Fax, and this one) exposed the whole stinking mess. Now the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is […]

Divided Motherhood in the Age of Discovery
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Divided Motherhood in the Age of Discovery

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The twentieth century saw the greatest advances made in science, technology, and medicine that the world has ever known. Building on the conceptual discoveries of the previous three centuries, we have wrought wonders unimagined in every decade of that century, and continue on unabated in this new century and new millennium. If there has been […]

Money Changes Everything
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Money Changes Everything

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When the news broke that Mitt and Ann Romney welcomed grandchildren numbers 17 and 18 this past Friday via “gestational surrogacy,” those of us here at CBC central—who oppose commercialized conception—wondered where the bottom is in these murky waters of assisted reproduction. Tagg Romney posted this on his facebook page after the twins were born: […]

UK Government Funds Forced Sterilizations in India
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UK Government Funds Forced Sterilizations in India

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The British government gave $268 million to the government of India for a program that forcibly sterilizes poor women and men, according to the Guardian newspaper. This news comes as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation prepares to co-host a family planning summit with the British government in London this July. Melinda Gates recently dismissed […]

Obama, Same-Sex Marriage, and Bioethical Fallout
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Obama, Same-Sex Marriage, and Bioethical Fallout

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Yesterday President Obama threw his support behind same-sex marriage. Thank God! The mask is off, six months before the election and about a year since he announced that he was willfully violating his Oath of Office by ordering the Justice Department to cease defending the law in court. Specifically, he ordered an end to defending The […]

Chen, the Conscience of China
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Chen, the Conscience of China

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I was going to devote this article to my recent trip to New Zealand, where I gave seven talks to a total of over 3,000 people. But then a blind Chinese human rights activist named Chen Guangcheng escaped from house arrest, and my phone began to ring off the hook. The media wanted to know […]

Catholic Business Leaders File Federal Lawsuit Challenging HHS Mandate
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Catholic Business Leaders File Federal Lawsuit Challenging HHS Mandate

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The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, today announced it has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the HHS mandate, on behalf of Legatus, the Nation’s largest organization of top Catholic business CEOs and professional leaders. Also joining in the lawsuit as Plaintiffs are the Weingartz Supply […]

You Should Be Worried!
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You Should Be Worried!

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“He moved about freely with them in Jerusalem, and spoke out boldly in the name of the Lord.  He also spoke and debated with the Hellenists, but they tried to kill him.” (Acts 9:29, NAB) When St. Paul began traveling throughout the Roman Empire, truly going into the culture of death in order to proclaim […]

The Triumph of Ideology Over Law
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The Triumph of Ideology Over Law

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With each passing day it becomes more apparent that President Obama has little respect for the intelligence of his ideological opponents.  If you don’t agree with him, he assumes it is because you “don’t understand the issue.”  In other words, you are ignorant, or misinformed, or both.  We saw this attitude at work during the […]

Pro-Abortion and Pro-Gay Youth Lobby Sent Home Empty-Handed from UN
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Pro-Abortion and Pro-Gay Youth Lobby Sent Home Empty-Handed from UN

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Youth activists arrived at the UN in droves in an attempt to hijack the 45thsession of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD) by promoting homosexual rights and abortion. However, countries rejected their demands and produced a fairly balanced outcome document that focuses on more pressing youth concerns like education, employment, health and development. Sponsored […]

CL70 - hbratton notxt web
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To Weed or Not to Weed…That is the Question

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Without any kind of a deep freeze this past winter, the weeds have had a field day (pun intended) this spring.  I don’t know about your neighborhood, but ours is totally infested with chickweed.  Now, chickweed looks innocent enough, with its dainty little white flowers and delicate stems, but don’t be fooled.  It’s a cold-blooded […]

Big Abortion’s Evolving Profit Structure and the U.S. Health Care Reform Package
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Big Abortion’s Evolving Profit Structure and the U.S. Health Care Reform Package

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In the mid-’90s, the abortion industry in the United States realized it was facing an existential threat — the population of abortionists was aging and nobody was stepping up to take their place. Although plenty would pay lip service to a right to “choose,” when it came to the grisly work involved in “terminations,” few […]

Dan Savage: Bully
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Dan Savage: Bully

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They used to arrest middle-aged perverts who get their jollies from talking dirty to children. Today, they get a television show, a nationally syndicated column, a lecture circuit and multiple visits to the Obama White House. You know: “Forward.” The irony is palpable. Dan Savage, sex columnist and founder of the LGBT anti-bullying “It Gets […]

Calling People "Vegetables": Where Did it Come From?
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Calling People “Vegetables”: Where Did it Come From?

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The term “vegetative state” became popular at the “birth” of bioethics (1978 Belmont Report). It is traced to the “delayed personhood” arguments used at the beginning of life issues: first the vegetative soul is present, then later the sensitive soul is added, and finally (about 3-4 months) the rational soul is added. Then and only […]

The Herx Case: Is it About God's Law or Politics?
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The Herx Case: Is it About God’s Law or Politics?

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Recently, Emily Herx, a teacher in a Catholic school, announced to the nation through major media outlets that she had been fired from a Catholic school because she used in vitro fertilization in an attempt to get pregnant. Herx is now suing St. Vincent DePaul Catholic School and the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Catholic diocese for […]

What Biotech Needs Most
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What Biotech Needs Most

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Over the years, I have given a lot of talks on biotechnology.  I have one on the ethics of genetic testing, one on the ethics of human genetic engineering and one on stem cell research and cloning. My talks, especially the one on cloning, are not all uplifting and feely-good.  Most people come in all […]

Aiming at China, Blind Lawyer Forces U.S. to Deal with Forced Abortions
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Aiming at China, Blind Lawyer Forces U.S. to Deal with Forced Abortions

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One man is forcing Hillary Clinton to pay attention to abuses against women. The woman who famously said in Beijing in 1995 that “women’s rights are human rights” has been excruciatingly silent since she’s come into power about one of the worst abuses against women. Mrs. Clinton’s first trip to China as U.S. Secretary of […]

Nine Lawsuits for Religious Freedom – A Brief Rundown of the Arguments
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Nine Lawsuits for Religious Freedom – A Brief Rundown of the Arguments

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There are now nine lawsuits, including one brought by Priests for Life, that have been filed in federal district courts around the country challenging the Obama administration’s HHS mandate that requires employers to provide coverage for activities that many of them believe people should not do. There is value to having multiple lawsuits because, having […]

PepsiCo Stops Using Aborted Fetal Cell Lines to Test Flavor Enhancers
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PepsiCo Stops Using Aborted Fetal Cell Lines to Test Flavor Enhancers

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Children of God for Life announced today the stunning news that PepsiCo will not use aborted fetal cell line HEK-293 (human embryonic kidney) in their contractual agreement with Senomyx to develop flavor enhancers for their beverages. Children of God for Life’s Executive Director, Debi Vinnedge, hailed PepsiCo’s decision as a major breakthrough and achievement by […]

‘Chariots of Fire’ Makes a Comeback – On Stage and in Real Life
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‘Chariots of Fire’ Makes a Comeback – On Stage and in Real Life

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The glorious story of Eric Liddell will soon grace a London stage just as issues of conscience make headlines with Christians defending religious freedom from coercion. Chariots of Fire, the Oscar-winning film of Olympic runner Eric Liddell’s refusal to race on the Sabbath, is being adapted into a play to usher in the 2010 Olympics […]