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 a down side to all of that fast-paced discovery, it has been the fact that the technological developments have come faster than humanity could process their implications and discern their right use, or whether they ought to be used at all.

Consider this quote from former Chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, Leon Kass, M.D., in Human Cloning and Human Dignity, The Report of the President’s Council on Bioethics. Though dealing specifically with cloning, the principles discussed apply equally to a host of issues.:

“We should not be self-deceived about our ability to set limits on the exploitation of nascent life. What disturbs us today we quickly or eventually get used to; yesterday’s repugnance gives way to tomorrow’s endorsement. A society that already tolerates the destruction of fetuses in the second and third trimesters will hardly be horrified by embryo and fetus farming (including in animal wombs), if this should turn out to be helpful in the cure of dreaded diseases.

“We realize, of course, that many proponents of cloning-for-biomedical-research will recommend regulations designed to prevent just such abuses (that is, the expansion of research to later-stage cloned embryos and fetuses). Refusing to erect a red light to stop research cloning, they will propose various yellow lights intended to assure ourselves that we are proceeding with caution, limits, or tears. Paradoxically, however, the effect might actually be to encourage us to continue proceeding with new (or more hazardous) avenues of research; for, believing that we are being cautious, we have a good conscience about what we do, and we are unable to imagine ourselves as people who could take a morally disastrous next step. We are neither wise enough nor good enough to live without clear limits.”

There were four great “divisions” or “splittings” that technology produced in the twentieth century. Each had catastrophic consequences that have contributed to the corrosion of civilization. Each involves the severing of unitive bonds with an uncontrolled release of energy that has been every bit as destructive as the intact bonds are productive. Three of these have been particularly catastrophic for women.

The first great splitting came at the Lambeth Conference of 1930, when the Anglican Church split away from the rest of Christendom and became the first Christian church to embrace artificial contraception. Never before had any Christian church held that the splitting, or separation of the Unitive and Procreative dimensions of marital sex was moral. Over the next few decades most all other Christian churches followed the Anglicans, with catastrophic consequences.

Looking at the moral and familial disintegration occurring in the churches who embraced contraception, as well as those quarters of the Catholic Church where the same was occurring, Pope Paul VI, in 1968, penned Humanae Vitae, the binding encyclical that explicated and reinforced 2,000 years of Catholic teaching about the beauty and sanctity of sex as designed by God in His order for creation. It also warned of the consequences of splitting the unitive from the procreative. Those who have suffered the most have been women, as contraception frees men to follow their most base and animal instincts, making of women’s bodies mere playthings.

What contraception cannot eliminate is the brain biochemistry of women where sex releases the hormone oxytocin, which is involved in producing feelings of bondedness and belonging. It doesn’t take too much violation of the bondedness to induce cynicism, apathy, and despair. If indeed there was a war between the sexes in the 1960’s, the pill did nothing but intensify it and add dimensions that never before existed.

The second great splitting was that of the atom; specifically, the splitting of the atomic nucleus. The bonds that hold the nuclear particles together are so strong that a grapefruit-sized amount of Uranium whose nuclei are split, through fission as it is called, can produce enough energy in an uncontrolled reaction to blow up a city. When the scientists of the Manhattan Project in World War II wanted to slow down and discuss the ethical implications of the bomb they had just invented, they were rebuffed by a military weary of the World War it had been fighting for close to four years, and saw it as the means to avoid millions of casualties in an invasion of the Japanese home islands. The rest is history.

The third great splitting that occurred came in the late 1970’s with in vitro fertilization (IVF). In IVF, eggs are taken from the mother’s ovaries and sperm is collected from the father (who is given a plastic cup and ushered to a private setting for self-expression). The gametes are then mixed in a Petri dish by a lab technician and fertilization occurs. The dozens of embryos thus produced are graded and sorted. The least viable-looking are simply discarded. The best are implanted in the mother’s womb, and the rest are submerged and frozen in liquid nitrogen at –320 degrees F.

A tragic consequence of this splitting is the consent of the desperate mother to this barbaric treatment of her offspring, often not perceived as such by the woman whose desperation blinds her.

If contraception split the unitive from the procreative dimensions of the marital embrace, then IVF has gone further to split the procreative dimension itself by actually negating the need for a marital embrace at all. It also introduced the first division of motherhood’s integrated unity. IVF removes the events of fertilization from within the mother and posits them in the Petri dish. In splitting the marital embrace, husband and wife are reduced from co-creators with God to the role of mere sideline observers in the laboratory as the technicians go about the work of procreation by being the agents who facilitate the union of egg and sperm.

In very short order sperm and egg donation in IVF expanded to any permutation of donors. Couples (many not even married) were engaging in eugenic creations of babies by soliciting sperm and egg donors from Ivy League students. If IVF was the technology for couples with problems rooted in the pathophysiology of conception, the next logical accommodation was made for those where women could not, or would not, carry a baby to term.

That accommodation was the fourth great splitting of the twentieth-century: Surrogate Motherhood. Surrogate motherhood takes the integrated unity of normal female reproduction and divides it across two (or more) women. In the case of the married couple, IVF is performed and then a surrogate is solicited to accept implantation of the embryo and gestate the child for the couple. Surrogates are paid in the tens of thousands of dollars for their services.

The problem with surrogate motherhood is that it isn’t.

It isn’t surrogacy. It’s a critical component of what is supposed to be an integrated physiological process of reproduction.

The legal and ethical communities quickly agreed that the mother was the egg donor for IVF who contracted the services of the surrogate. In my senior thesis in college I argued against this understanding, and remain opposed to it today. A child may now have five parents: egg donor, sperm donor, married couple who procured said egg and sperm for IVF, and surrogate (gestational mother).

Many Catholic bioethicists posit motherhood in the egg donor who is also the married (or not) woman procuring IVF and the services of the surrogate.

It’s a huge mistake to take so simplified a view.

The truth of the matter is that both egg donor and gestational mother are the biological mothers of the child. To say, ethically, that the “real” mother is the egg donor is to blind oneself to the nine months of embryonic and fetal development that occur in the womb. The bondedness of mother and child have as their most proximal and powerful origins the mutual growth together during nine months of gestation, and not the more distal ovulation and fertilization (which the egg donor does not participate in with IVF).

Motherhood is more, much more, than the donation of half an individual’s chromosomal content. If Catholic bioethicists cannot see that nine months of gestation are the second half of the biological equation and produce an intimacy and union between woman and child, an intimacy forged within the created order of gestation, then we are in trouble.

The truth is that God’s created order has been artificially divided within women. First with the division wrought by contraception, which makes of women the very sex objects inveighed against by the feminists of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Then, the integrated unity of the procreative dimension of human sexuality itself is split by IVF and further subdivided by surrogacy, with the end result being that two women can each claim a biological component of motherhood: fertilization and gestation.

Specifically, the baby’s growth and development are all facilitated by the woman in whose womb the child grows. The baby is literally bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh. Lost in all of this technological revolution has been the great dignity of women and motherhood. (We’ll save the discussion on men and fatherhood for another day)

To add further to the disintegration, motherhood has been completely commodified, from the sale of eggs for thousands of dollars, to paid surrogates. Our women have been dismantled and their parts and functions sold to the highest bidders. All of this in the name of a feminism that sought freedom from women’s biology, which was held out to them as nature’s chains of oppression.

Just because we can do something does not mean that we ought to. In forty years we have slowly and imperceptibly come to a place most of us never thought we would come to. When the created order of human bonds is split, the destruction is every bit as catastrophic as the splitting of the bonds that unite the atomic nucleus. The prophets of the twentieth-century have been the Catholic popes and bishops, who have been ridiculed mercilessly. Looking at the ever-widening debris field, perhaps it’s time for another consideration of their unitive message.

Kass was quite correct:

“We are neither wise enough nor good enough to live without clear limits.”

To all of the mothers who give great witness through their loving sacrifices, their example of faith, and to those who came to motherhood through a process of disintegration the pain of childlessness blinded them to,

Happy Mother’s Day.

Recently, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius dropped her guard and gave the American people a good insight into how it is that Obamacare will ultimately stay solvent: The nonexistence of patients who, not being alive, cannot make claims upon the system.

From CNSNews.com

During the subcommittee hearing, Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) said that contraception provided by insurance companies to people employed by religious organizations under the future form of the rule Sebelius described would not be was not free.

“Who pays for it? There’s no such thing as a free service,” Murphy asked.

Sebelius responded that that is not the case with insurance.

“The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for cost of contraception,” Sebelius answered.

Murphy expressed surprise by the answer.

“So you are saying, by not having babies born, we are going to save money on health care?” Murphy asked.

Sebelius replied, “Providing contraception is a critical preventive health benefit for women and for their children.”

Murphy again sought clarification.

“Not having babies born is a critical benefit. This is absolutely amazing to me. I yield back,” he said.

Sebelius responded, “Family planning is a critical health benefit in this country, according to the Institute of Medicine.”

See and hear Sebelius in her own words:

Now this week comes word that the Congessional Budget Office estimates Obamacare will cost twice its originally promised cost. News also comes of the return of what Sarah Palin dubbed, “Death Panels” for healthcare rationing. Far from right wing flights of fancy, these realities already exist in chilling bureaucratic routine across the nation in hospital committees who decide when patients have used too many resources, and in Oregon’s health care system where the government decides when a patient’s remaining quality of life justifies the expense of keeping them alive.

Here is the ABC News article about one such patient, Barbara Wagner. It is a portal into the national future.

Adding fuel to the fire is the issue of states increasingly strained by the growing number of civil service pensioners who do their 20 years and retire on full pensions.

Add to that the Social Security insolvency.

It becomes clear that Sebelius has not so much committed a gaffe as she has revealed the solution her fellow travelers see to our insolvency issues: decreasing the number of claimants on the system decreases the system’s expenditures. Nonexistence of humans on the front end of the life spectrum will fund the cost of the HHS contraception mandate through the offsetting of the non-conceived human’s non-claims on the system. Applying the same thinking on the other end of the life spectrum will realize a bumper crop of savings for local, state, and the federal government when civil service pensioners are denied life-saving services, or have them delayed long enough in rationing lines in the hopes that the patient will be overtaken by the disease while waiting.

Being a Pacific Northwestern Governor, Sarah Palin looked to one of her closest neighbors, Oregon, and saw clearly the future of the pro-abortion, anti-life, rabidly eugenic left wing. It is far easier to cull the herd than grow the economy, especially in a political party that is opposed to all known and practical sources of energy; to a political party that has made a central plank of their platform the reduction of the world’s population.

We are a nation in serious, serious trouble.

To only blame the Obama administration or the Democrat Party is to miss the fact that sufficient numbers of Americans agree with these people. Far too many uphold the right for someone else to slaughter their child, even though they are personally opposed to doing so.

So many uphold he right of others to force doctors to perform manslaughter through physician-assisted suicide, even if it violates the doctor’s conscience.

So many uphold the forcing of all medical students to perform abortions against their consciences.

So many uphold the forcing of religious institutions and private businesses to purchase contraceptives against their consciences.

90% of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted, with costs to the parents and the ‘system’ cited by physicians and genetic counselors in a coercive campaign to rid the world of these “defectives”.

Far too many in this nation support the coercion of physicians and private citizens to do the government’s bidding when doing so violates consciences formed by thousands of years of civilized precepts. Now we have established that private and institutional conscience is the property of the state, the state is taking full advantage of the opportunity to advance its agenda.

Hitler never could have accomplished his malignant agenda without the support of the German people in sufficient numbers. It takes more than a village, it takes a nation to be good or evil. Today, our nation balances on a razor’s edge.

It will take more than the November elections to turn things around. It’s going to take the realization of what is at stake. It’s no longer someone else’s ox getting gored.

We’re all in peril.

Hot on the heels of our medical conference last Saturday, Therapeutic Advances in Poor Prenatal Diagnoses, comes this letter from Archbishop Chaput to the people of his archdiocese. Opposition to this new eugenics is swelling all over the nation. Here is a bishop who makes me proud of my Church.

Earlier this week local media covered the story of Amelia Rivera, a young girl with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome reportedly denied a kidney transplant by a local hospital. Amelia’s syndrome results in serious developmental delays, and according to her parents, the hospital declined a transplant due to her diminished mental ability and shortened lifespan.

It’s unwise to assume that news media get all the details of a story like this right, or that the motives of an entire hospital’s leadership and staff are as unfeeling as an individual doctor might seem. Nonetheless, a couple of things are worth noting. First, Amelia’s parents are persons who love their daughter zealously for who she is, and who know the beauty and dignity of her life despite her disability. Second, the habit of treating genetically disabled children as somehow less worthy of life is growing across the country.

A number of my friends have children with disabilities. Their problems range from cerebral palsy to Turner’s syndrome to Trisomy 18, which is extremely serious. Prenatal testing can now detect a high percentage of pregnancies with a risk of genetic problems.

The tests often aren’t conclusive. But they’re pretty good. And the results of those tests are brutally practical. Studies show that more than 80 percent of unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome, for example, now get terminated in the womb. They’re killed because of a flaw in one of their chromosomes – a flaw that’s neither fatal nor contagious, but merely undesirable.

The older a woman gets, the higher her risk of bearing a child with special needs. And so, in medical offices around the country, pregnant women now hear from doctors or genetic counselors that their baby has “an increased likelihood” of a genetic flaw based on one or more prenatal tests. Some doctors deliver this information with sensitivity and great support for the woman. But, as my friends know from experience, too many others seem more concerned about avoiding lawsuits, or managing costs, or even, in a few ugly cases, cleaning up the gene pool.

In practice, medical professionals can now steer an expectant mother toward abortion simply by hinting at a list of the child’s possible defects. And the most debased thing about that kind of pressure is that doctors know better than anyone else how vulnerable a woman can be in hearing potentially tragic news about her unborn baby.

I’m not suggesting that doctors should hold back vital knowledge from parents. Nor should they paint an implausibly upbeat picture of life with a child who has a disability. Facts and resources are crucial in helping adult persons prepare themselves for difficult challenges. But doctors, genetic counselors and medical school professors should have on staff – or at least on speed dial – experts of a different sort.

Parents of children with special needs, special education teachers and therapists, and pediatricians who have treated children with disabilities often have a hugely life-affirming perspective.

Unlike prenatal caregivers, these professionals have direct knowledge of persons with special needs. They know their potential. They’ve seen their accomplishments. They can testify to the benefits – often miraculous – of parental love and faith.

Expectant parents deserve to know that a child with special needs can love, laugh, learn, work, feel hope and excitement, make friends and create joy for others. These things are beautiful precisely because they transcend what we expect. They witness to the truth that every child with special needs has a value that matters eternally.

Raising a child with special needs can be demanding. It always involves some degree of suffering. Parents grow up very fast. None of my friends who has a daughter or son with a serious disability is melodramatic, or self-conscious, or even especially pious about it. They speak about their special child with an unsentimental realism.

It’s a realism flowing out of love – real love, the kind that forces its way through fear and suffering to a decision, finally, to surround the child with their heart and trust in the goodness of God. And that decision to trust, of course, demands not just real love, but also real courage.

The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is never between some imaginary perfection or imperfection. None of us is perfect. No child is perfect. The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is between love and unlove; between courage and cowardice; between trust and fear.

That’s the choice we face when it happens in our personal experience. And that’s the choice we face as a society in deciding which human lives we will treat as valuable, and which we will not.

This Sunday, January 22, marks the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legitimized permissive abortion around the country. More than 45 million abortions later, the damage of that decision continues to grow — undermining our reverence for the life not just of unborn children but of the mentally and physically disabled as well.

We need to understand that if some lives are regarded as unworthy, respect for all life is at risk. We should pray that Amelia Rivera gets the help she needs, and that God surrounds her parents with the support they need.

And especially this week, more than ever, we should recommit ourselves to defending the dignity of all human life, no matter how “flawed” it may seem in the eyes of the world.

Word comes this week that Cardinal-elect Timothy Dolan received a telephone call from President Obama stating that the Catholic Church would not receive an exemption from the requirement to purchase contraception for its employees. Cardinal Dolan is less than enthused:

“It’s not about contraception. It’s about the right of conscience.”

“The government doesn’t have the right to butt into the internal governance and teachings of the church. This is not a Catholic issue, it’s an American issue. We’re strong on this issue of conscience, and that’s what’s at stake here.”

“While I appreciate his courtesy Friday morning to give me a call with the somber news, I had to tell him I was terribly let down, disappointed and disturbed.”

Yes, Eminence, it is about conscience where Obama and the Federal Government are concerned, but it’s about much, much more within the Catholic Church.

It’s about the contending issues of fidelity and narcissism that have torn the Church to pieces over the past fifty years, reducing a once-powerful and respected constituency to a laughingstock in many political circles. Obama’s actions and posture toward the Church, even the election of such a man, would have been unthinkable twenty-five years ago. His declaration to Cardinal Dolan was less a declaration of war than the final, sickening realization that we have had the terms of our self-incarceration dictated to us by the man who embodies all that we have become as a people.

In my 51 years, I have witnessed Mass attendance drop to 1/3 of what it was when I was a child. Since my twelfth year of life, we have butchered more than 54 million unborn babies, millions of them in their Catholic mothers’ wombs. My generation advanced the sexual revolution and spread AIDS like wildfire. Yes many of us have repented of our earlier sins and have pursued virtue, but many of us have not properly formed our children out of misplaced guilt and mistaken notions of what constitutes hypocrisy.

I can’t remember EVER hearing a homily on contraception or John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. I can count on two hands the number of homilies I have heard on abortion, and none, NONE on what makes for a sacramental marriage.

For as bad as it has been, the sex abuse scandal has been the LEAST damaging issue for the Church. That was a very small fraction of our priests, less than 4%. Our marriages are in free-fall, our children torn apart by divorce.

At every step of the way, rejection of what the Church teaches has been behind the disintegration. At every step of the way, we have elected increasingly radical politicians. There is a causal relationship in that pattern.

There is no “Catholic Vote.”

Enter Obama and Dolan.

Their contention, and our current condition, could be viewed as presaged by Abraham Lincoln nearly two-hundred years ago:

The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions:
Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois
January 27, 1838

This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.

How then shall we perform it?–At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?– Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!–All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

We are dying by suicide. We are killing our babies by abortion, and now our elderly in increasing numbers through passive and active euthanasia. The preservation of resources and lifestyle are the leading reasons offered up.

Malignant Narcissism and Hedonism.

That there is reason to believe Obama could actually be re-elected indicates we passed the conscience issue long ago. Conscience was determined in our last presidential election. We elected Obama knowing full-well his declared intent.

This election will determine whether or not we’re content with our chains.

Late last Spring I became increasingly convinced that a major area not tackled by the pro-life movement in any coordinated fashion is the new eugenics movement in fetal medicine. Specifically, increasing numbers of physicians are advising, demanding, and even coercing women to abort babies diagnosed with what have become known collectively as “Poor Prenatal Diagnoses.” Such conditions as Down Syndrome, Trisomy 18, Trisomy 13, Anencephaly, Spina Bifida, etc… constitute this constellation.

Over the past two years, I have heard dozens of women tell me their personal horror stories, many of whom refusing to abort and then going on to have a perfectly normal child. We hear of countries in Europe who are boasting that they will have eradicated Down Syndrome in a few short years, not by eliminating the ongoing occurrence of trisomy 21, but by a 100% abortion rate as the diagnoses come in.

Why not tell women of all that can be done to help these babies?

I contacted Chris Gacek of the Family Research Council, who put me in touch with Jeanne Monahan, the Director of FRC’s Center for Human Dignity. Together with Jeanne, and with the advice of Peg Kolm of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, and my good friend Leticia Velasquez who co-founded KIDS (Keep Infants with Down Syndrome), a working group formed around the idea of having a full day medical conference for medical professionals and the public alike. What emerged from this group is the Council on Poor Prenatal Diagnoses and Therapeutic Interventions.

And here we are. A wonderful collaborative project with others including the Lejeunne Foundation on therapeutics from the womb and throughout the individual’s life.

The conference on Saturday will be live webcast from FRC Headquarters in Washington, and is free to sign up and watch. Just follow this link to register. (We’re pretty near our limit for in-person attendance)

Conference main speakers will address the tidal wave of therapeutic interventions available for these children. They include:

John Bruchalski, M.D.
Byron Calhoun, M.D.
Alberto Costa, M.D., Ph.D.
Jeanne Monahan, M.A.
Gerard Nadal, Ph.D.
David Prentice, Ph.D.
Laura Toso, M.D.

In addition, we’ll be hearing the witness of Samuel Armas, the little baby who had fetal surgery for Spina Bifida, and whose hand was photographed reaching out from the womb and holding the finger of his surgeon. He’ll be there with his mother, Julie.

We’re also going to have a panel discussion and presentations by people who have founded organizations to support these children and their parents:

Melinda Delahoyde, Care Net
Leticia Velasquez, Kids
Christopher Bell, Good Counsel Homes
Nancy Mayer Whittington, Isaiah’s Promise
Mary Kellett, Prenatal Partners for Life

Kristan Hawkins, Students for Life

Paper Presentations by medical students.

Documentary preview and discussion by In Altum Productions Filmmakers
Jordan Allott and Daniel Allott.

The conference begins at 8:30 A.M. and ends at 5:00 P.M.

The good news is that there is a group of physicians here in New York who have been thinking along the same lines, as well as pro-life medical professionals around the country who have all come up with the same concern and the same resolve to effect a change. It’s the leading of the Holy Spirit, and just in time. Many medical school professors encourage eugenic abortion and don’t teach the therapeutics. This conference will pierce the encroaching shroud of silence and shine the light on all that medicine has to offer its tiniest patients.

So, starting this coming Saturday, The Council on Poor Prenatal Diagnoses and Therapeutic Interventions is kicking off A Year of Hope and Healing, which will see more conferences and coordinated activity in bringing to the fore the many support and advocacy groups, more physicians, scientists, and ethicists.

Please join us this coming Saturday for the live webcast, and spread the good word!

Again, it’s free to attend on-line. Just register at this link.

http://www.frc.org/player.swf

Please bear with me on this one. It comes with a warning. This is gut-wrenching and nauseating, but needs to be aired.

After having worked for seven years with teen prostitutes at Covenant House in the 1980′s, I honestly thought that I had seen it all. It’s tough to live with the memories of all that I saw, especially as I am now a father and understand the fragility of children from the perspective one can only develop as a loving parent. Mostly I try to forget, because the memories are all the more horrifying when I think of my own children. Some of the most damaging experiences our kids at Covenant House had experienced, and from which they were running, were those of incest.

Teen prostitution, incest, abortion, IVF. What do they all have in common?

Control. Callous Disregard. Objectification. Commodification.

I guess I haven’t seen it all. On their blogs this weekend, both Elizabeth Scalia and Deacon Greg Kandra covered a horrifying incident in Rosemount High School, Minnesota. From the Star Tribune:

A prank on some blindfolded Rosemount High School athletes — they were unknowingly and at times amorously kissed by their parents during a recent pep fest — is collecting YouTube views by the tens of thousands and has the principal apologizing for what happened.

Here’s how the practical joke, originated by school staff members, played out during the assembly on Dec. 8:

The captains of the school’s winter sports teams — boys and girls — were lined up and blindfolded. They were told they would be kissed and then asked to guess who was on the other side of their lips.

Some of the parents during the 59-second YouTube video are seen holding the kisses for several seconds, cupping their child’s faces or embracing and swaying.

One mother moved her son’s hand down to her behind during the encounter. Another mom has her son down on the gym floor to the delight of two male students nearby.

The hoots, screams and laughter rolled on as the students pulled off their blindfolds to realize it was Mom or Dad they were smooching.

Read the rest here.

See the video here.

The story goes on to tell how the principal apologized because some people were offended (not because anything intrinsically immoral, illegal, or psychologically and developmentally damaging had occurred on his watch).

The article goes on to say:

Principal John Wollersheim said he received e-mails and phone calls soon after the pep fest from people who said they were offended by the display. This week, he said, the feedback he’s received has been more supportive.

The focus here should be on the giddy delight of the crowd in the video, and the general support of the principal.

We have imploded as a civilization.

Children are not viewed as autonomous human beings from the very earliest stages of their lives, with parents freezing dozens of their embryonic babies in IVF labs, mothers and fathers (married!!!) aborting their less-than-perfect babies with poor prenatal diagnoses, and now incest-as-pep rally fare.

At its core is the view of the child as property to be disposed of at will. They have ceased being persons to their narcissistic parents and school administrators, and contrary to protests from people around the blogosphere, this is NOT an isolated incident.

The cheers of the crowd and the preponderance of support for the principal tell us just how bad this has seeped into the collective consciousness of society. Need more proof?

The Star Tribune story is most notable for what it DIDN”T report: The arrest of the parents. The firing of the school personnel responsible. The involvement of child protective services. It didn’t report these things because they didn’t happen. Even if these students were beyond the age of statutory rape, what of the younger children present for whom incest was offered as wholesome pep rally entertainment?

When we come to the broader culture with an anthropology that values all human life with an intrinsic dignity from its earliest stages and we make little headway, we need to look at the impediments to our message in the broader culture.

This story, in all of its sordid dimensionality, is a chilling and sobering look into the soul of a civilization that has completely imploded. If we are to be successful in our life apologetics, we will have to take all of this into account. We need to rebuild from the ground-up, and it can’t be done without evangelizing with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

God have mercy on us all.

Part II Here

UPDATE 12/5/11: The Gingrich Campaign responded. I’m not entirely sold on the response. Check it out.

News today that presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich believes that life begins at implantation does not come as a great surprise. Other pro-life denizens of Capitol Hill, such as Senators Connie Mack and Orin Hatch have also stated that the embryo is not human until it’s in the womb.

Having recently covered this topic on when a human life begins, I’d like to probe deeper into the thoughts of Mr. Gingrich and extend to him an invitation to a cordial dialogue on this issue.

A telling remark made by Mr. Gingrich sheds light on whence this issue arises:

“I think that if you take a position when a woman has fertilized egg and that’s been successfully implanted that now you’re dealing with life,” he added. “Because otherwise you’re going to open up an extraordinary range of very difficult questions.”

That last line is the key. Wittingly or unwittingly, the Speaker is guilty of the same error as our pro-choice opponents. He is defining away the human identity and status of the embryo in order to avoid wrestling with difficult questions of responsibility toward members of our species in their earliest and most vulnerable stage of existence.

Yes, by acknowledging the human identity and status of the pre-implantation embryo we find ourselves immersed in a world of searing questions that directly challenge our infatuation with the unchecked exercise of raw political power, of personal predilection without accountability.

We call into question the use of hormonal birth control measures, which carry the risk of preventing implantation.

We call into question the use of chemical abortifacients such as Ella that are marketed as contraceptives precisely because of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology’s change of the terms conception and pregnancy to be synonymous with implantation.

We call into question the use of IUD’s, which prevent implantation.

We call into question the tearing apart of embryonic humans for medical experimentation.

We call into question the inhumanity of freezing hundreds of thousands of embryonic humans in liquid nitrogen, treating them as property and not as persons.

One of the many impressive qualities of Mr. Gingrich is that he brings his Ph.D. in history to the table when he debates and puts forth a vision of this nation’s future. It is specifically to the latter point made that he must turn his attention, that of treating pre-implantation embryonic humans as mere property (especially to avoid the difficult questions that acknowledging their humanity presents).

We have been down this road before.

Because our Founders failed to root out slavery from the outset, the nation was riven for over eighty years by the Faustian bargain made in the beginning. The malevolence came to its full-flower with the Dred Scott decision, which entirely stripped African Americans of their personhood identity. What to do with freed slaves was a burning issue in its day. How would they, or could they integrate into the broader society as free persons?

We suffered that evil as a people for as long as that evil was sufferable. In the end, the civil war that everyone feared came anyway, and it laid waste the nation, North and South, with over 600,000 men dead, and millions grievously wounded.

The same is happening today, with the exception that the civil war we are in has been, with rare exception, a bloodless war. However, it has poisoned our body politic, and brought this nation to its knees politically. The one who would be President of the United States cannot seek refuge from the political storm by engaging in deft verbal engineering. It didn’t work with slavery and personhood, and it won’t work here either.

Mr. Gingrich has given voice to a very consequential idea, that a broad spectrum of difficult questions might have to be answered if we deal in the truth of science, and in the truth of human anthropology witnessed to, not only by the Declaration of Independence, but by his newly-adopted Catholic faith. It will mean dealing with the rampant narcissism and hedonism that have swamped the nation he would lead.

So consequential is this idea, that it has profound implications for conscience protections for healthcare professionals as well as the rights of the Catholic Church and its related agencies to refuse mandatory coverage of contraception, most of which is abortifacient in nature, though not under Mr. Gingrich’s nomenclatural accommodation.

It would mean declaring that sex and reproduction have consequences, and that embryonic human beings have moral claims on us as individuals, and as a nation. Such moral claims would mean people reassessing their recreational use of sex, and their utilitarian use of in vitro fertilization.

These are serious problems in the life of this nation, and as the Speaker knows all too well from our experience of slavery, we won’t solve them by attempting to define the victims away.

When one considers the ethics of manipulation, the question of whether we ought to, or whether we may manipulate an organism or entity depends on the answer to the first and most fundamental question:

What is it?

Ascertaining the identity and status of the object of our intended manipulation is essential.

In the fields of obstetrical medicine and reproductive medicine the ethical debates have raged for four decades. Enlightened discourse between opposing parties must assume good motives by all involved, and then go about asking the essential questions, following where the truth of science and reason lead.

Many claim that life begins at some point distant from fertilization, always beyond the point at which they propose some manipulation (abortion, embryonic stem cell culturing, etc…). There are always a list of biological functions that are given to define when human life begins: Cognitive capacity, etc.

The simple biological truth of the matter is that the Cell Theory states that all cells arise from pre-existing cells. There is no blackout period between sperm and egg uniting, and then the emergence of ‘life’ at some point distant.

The Carnegie stages of human development indicate that human development begins in the zygotic stage. Then there is the assertion of developmental biologist and leading textbook author in the field, Scott Gilbert. In his text, Gilbert takes us through the life cycle of a dog. His text, Developmental Biology, is arguably the leading text in the field. According to Gilbert:

“Traditional ways of classifying catalog animals according to their adult structure. But, as J. T. Bonner (1965) pointed out, this is a very artificial method, because what we consider an individual is usually just a brief slice of its life cycle. When we consider a dog, for instance, we usually picture an adult. But the dog is a “dog” from the moment of fertilization of a dog egg by a dog sperm. It remains a dog even as a senescent dying hound. Therefore, the dog is actually the entire life cycle of the animal, from fertilization through death.”

First, note how he sets the word dog off in quotes at one point, to communicate the very essence of the organism:

But the dog is a “dog” from the moment of fertilization of a dog egg by a dog sperm…

The same may be said of all vertebrates, including cats, giraffes, chimpanzees, and humans. Substituting the word human for dog in Gilbert’s analysis gets to the heart of the matter. We are human for our entire life cycle. We are whole and complete in form and function at every stage of our development, for that given developmental stage. The prepubescent child is fully human, even though they lack the capacity to execute all human functions, such as abstract reasoning, or reproduction.

In the same way, the early embryo is alive and fully human, though it has not yet executed all human organismal functions.

Photo via: embryology.med.unsw.edu.au

This is a mess. It’s also one of the thorniest questions in vaccination medicine to have surfaced in a long time. From the outset, it must be clear that I am neither endorsing, nor dismissing the question of vaccinating boys. Get a cup of coffee, and let’s kick this one around for a bit.

The issues here are many, so let’s start with some straightforward infectious diseases epidemiology.

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is the most prevalent of the sexually transmitted pathogens. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have an excellent fact sheet which is a must-read. Click here.

From a strict infectious diseases perspective, the goal of public health is to certainly limit the pool of pathogen within a population, and to eradicate it if at all possible. This was done successfully with smallpox through a determined and aggressive campaign of world-wide immunization. From a strictly scientific perspective, the same makes sense with HPV. Why not shoot for eradication?

Of course, smallpox and HPV are very different diseases, both in their lethality and in their mode of transmission. The smallpox virus is spread through saliva droplets and remains alive for anywhere between 6-24 hours on contaminated surfaces. Someone might have sneezed into their hand, touched an object in the office such as a phone receiver, and thus facilitated transmission to others touching that object.

HPV requires sexual contact. It is that dimension of personal behavior, of choice, that leads to disease transmission and the current debate.

Certainly, as Cardinal O’Connor used to say, good morality is good medicine. Virginity followed by fidelity in both parties to a marriage obviates the need in that couple for any immunization against STD’s. For the rest of the world, we have an imperfect reality. Let’s consider the parent who does not want their child immunized (and we’ll get to the vaccine safety issues shortly).

Regina and I will stress virtue in our children, and would hope that they remain virgins until marriage. Assuming all goes well, there is no guarantee that their spouses will be virgins, despite assurances given verbally. Therein lies the danger. With well over half of the population infected, the probabilities of even the most virtuous among us encountering HPV are astronomical.

Given that the vaccine is only effective before one is exposed to the virus, the question of when to vaccinate becomes a real concern for parents. Children from the best and most faith-filled families succumb to peer pressure and have sex. Many identify virginity with vaginal intercourse and settle on oral and anal sex as compromise activities that bring about orgasm while ‘preserving’ their virginity, such as they define it.

The problem is that HPV can be spread from the genitals to the mouth and oropharynx, with 35% of all throat cancers being caused by HPV. HPV can also be spread from the mouth to the genitalia.

It’s a mess.

In the strictest sense, vaccinating our children against this pathogen can save a great many women from cervical cancer, males from penile cancer, and both women and men from throat cancer. That’s simply a fact.

The problem comes in with some 68 reported deaths from Gardasil given to girls, and tens of thousands of reported adverse side-effects. Still, when one considers the following ANNUAL numbers from CDC:

Cervical cancer. Each year, about 12,000 women get cervical cancer in the U.S. Almost all of these cancers are HPV-associated.

Other cancers that can be caused by HPV are less common than cervical cancer. Each year in the U.S., there are about:

1,500 women who get HPV-associated vulvar cancer
500 women who get HPV-associated vaginal cancer
400 men who get HPV-associated penile cancer
2,700 women and 1,500 men who get HPV-associated anal cancer
1,500 women and 5,600 men who get HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancers (cancers of the back of throat including base of tongue and tonsils) [Note: Many of these cancers may also be related to tobacco and alcohol use.]

The question arises: What is an acceptable risk in vaccinating?

No vaccine is 100% safe. Ever. Period.

People get sick and people die from vaccines. It’s a numbers game. It’s a cost-benefit analysis. If all of the reported adverse effects of Gardasil are actually true, they still represent a drop in the bucket compared to the numbers of HPV-associated cancers reported above. In the cold calculus of public health, it seems an acceptable risk.

Enter again the behavioral component of disease transmission, and the clarity of acceptable risk immediately becomes foggy. Were smallpox once again in the population, I wouldn’t hesitate to accept these numbers as an acceptable risk, precisely because one cannot see the disease coming.

However, people contract HPV through willful behavior. They will the behavior that carries the risk of transmission. In that light, here is the dilemma faced by Regina and me:

Do we risk our children’s lives and health today in an attempt to hedge our bets on their behavior years down the line, or of their future spouses’ premarital behaviors?

Even if our children remain virgins, there is no guarantee with their future spouses. Do we risk their lives to attenuate a possible case of HPV in a future mate?

If Gardasil is good enough for girls, then it’s good enough for boys.

The question is whether it’s good enough?

I honestly don’t know.

Jill Stanek carries the following quote from the rabidly proabort website, RH Reality Check, on her blog. Below is the quote and my response left at Jill’s.

Professional obstacles cited by physicians [who perform abortions] included workplaces with an anti-abortion climate; the surprisingly widespread “no-abortion policies” that quietly exist in many private practices, HMOs, and hospitals across the country; the risk of being pigeonholed as just an abortion provider; and the risk of being ostracized by the local medical community and patient population. On a more personal level, some physicians worried that providing abortions would cause their families to suffer discrimination and even danger.

~ Jennifer Coletti, RH Reality Check, September 22

Dear Jennifer,

The processes of becoming a board certified physician and a scientist are exactly the same in both time and effort, differing only in the scientist going to the lab and the physician doing rotations and residency with patients. In my case, 70% of the coursework was identical, so here’s some insight.

It begins with four years of tough undergraduate coursework including full-year courses in physics, general chemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, calculus, biostatistics, general biology, anatomy and physiology, biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, histology, etc…

Assuming the candidate has made it through all of that with good grades, there comes the Medical College Admission Test, which is akin to putting one’s head into a sausage grinder for 8 hours and hoping to do very well. At this point one is competing with the 30% who made it through pre-med alive.

After admission to medical school, there is a brutal two-year course of basic sciences classes. The pace and workload are so intense that most students EITHER go to class, or read the books. Most simply don’t have time for both.

Then comes the first part of their licensing exam, the USMLE, Part I.

Then comes the exhausting 3rd and 4th year rotations through the various hospital services and more endless hours of study.

Then comes part II of the USMLE.

After graduating with their doctorates, the new doctors enter internship and residency, which can last anywhere from three to seven years, depending on the specialty. Most states still permit the 36 hour shifts for resident physicians, which is exhausting. Somewhere early in that process they take Part III of the USMLE and become full-fledged physicians. After their residency training, candidates then sit for their board exams in the chosen specialty, usually a combination of written and oral.

By now, 12-15 years have elapsed since the first day of pre-med in undergrad.

Many will choose to go on for advanced training in a highly specialized area of medicine, requiring a two-year post-doctoral fellowship, with yet another certification exam.

Ph.D.’s go through a very similar process.

In all of that sacrifice of time, effort, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in training (and hundreds of thousands more of lost income while in medical/graduate school and residency), we all have a dream that sustains us. We have a vision of ourselves making some significant contribution to the world so that our time here was well spent. We typically have the dream of helping other human beings by relieving their pain and suffering.

Tearing babies to shreds violates every precept that sustains the overwhelming majority of us through all of that frustration and physical exhaustion for almost 20 years of our adult lives. Yes, we regard such practitioners of the Black Art as common butchers and treat them as lepers in the societies of doctors, whose sacred trust it is to uphold the highest standards of our fields of endeavor.

They are lepers and pariahs for good reason. They murder the innocent, the most fundamental violation of the Hippocratic Oath. They butcher women. They do not follow the standard of care in Obstetrics and Gynecology.

They are despised and loathed by us, and their stigma is as great as the betrayal of our collective sense of dignity and decency in the scientific and medical professions.

Efforts by proaborts to force legislation that would force abortion into hospitals will only stiffen the resistance of the medical community and make the alienation and isolation of the abortionist all the more acute. Until such time as they abandon the Black Art, their stigma and their isolation are well-deserved.

Absent any repentance, they are also a foretaste of their eternal condition.

In Arthur Miller’s 1949 play, Death of a Salesman, protagonist Willy Loman famously declares:

“You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away — a man is not a piece of fruit.”

Perhaps Christian Broadcasting Network’s Rev. Pat Robertson should carefully consider those words in light of his recent advice that a man whose wife has Alzheimer’s disease should divorce her and remarry, ensuring that he provide custodial care for the useless wife. Here’s Robertson in his own words, as reported by CBS News:

(AP) Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson told his “700 Club” viewers that divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer’s is justifiable because the disease is “a kind of death.”
During the portion of the show where the one-time Republican presidential candidate takes questions from viewers, Robertson was asked what advice a man should give to a friend who began seeing another woman after his wife started suffering from the incurable neurological disorder.

“I know it sounds cruel, but if he’s going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her,” Robertson said.

The chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, which airs the “700 Club,” said he wouldn’t “put a guilt trip” on anyone who divorces a spouse who suffers from the illness, but added, “Get some ethicist besides me to give you the answer.”

Most Christian denominations at least discourage divorce, citing Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Mark that equate divorce and remarriage with adultery.

Terry Meeuwsen, Robertson’s co-host, asked him about couples’ marriage vows to take care of each other “for better or for worse” and “in sickness and in health.”

“If you respect that vow, you say `til death do us part,”‘ Robertson said during the Tuesday broadcast. “This is a kind of death.”

A network spokesman said Wednesday that Robertson had no further statement.

Stunning!

But not all that surprising.

We have embraced narcissism, hedonism, and utilitarianism with an ever-tightening embrace here in the West. To be fair, I understand well the pain and suffering of people watching loved ones succumbing to this dread disease. It is a long and terrible ordeal. I simply cannot imagine going through it as a spouse after a lifetime together. That said, there is another dimension of fairness to this husband that needs to be addressed.

Having spent a lifetime together, he must have some reserves within him to honor his vows, when honoring those vows matters most. Willy Loman said it beautifully.

My dear friend and life’s mentor, Father Luke McCann, also sits in a nursing home with advanced Alzheimer’s. When I told him that I was going to propose to Regina, Luke reminded me of Loman’s quote. He cautioned against doing in mid-life what many men slide into:

“You’re getting Regina at age 23, in all of her youthful beauty and promise. You’re getting her best years of industry and energy, and she’ll bear and raise your children. When you get into your fifties, you don’t dump her for a younger model.”

Luke went on,

“Look, Gerry, nobody ever thinks on their wedding day they’re going to get divorced, and it doesn’t just happen. When it does, it’s the result of a thousand missed course corrections along the way.”

I remember that talk like it happened this morning. In a chapter that I wrote in an upcoming book, A Special Mother is Born, I discuss the toxic wasteland that became our marriage when Joseph was as yet undiagnosed with his autism and Regina and I were at one another’s throats over our differences about him. We came right to the brink of divorce, but Luke’s words screamed loud and clear in my mind, as did the vows I made on my wedding day.

Indeed, there were a thousand missed course corrections along the way, and the reconciliation for our mutual failures was a painful process.

What Robertson proposes is something orders of magnitude more ghastly than walking out on a fully functional spouse. He proposes throwing away the peel after having savored the succulence of the fruit. It’s worse than abandonment. I’m not sure there is even a word to describe it.

The vow is until death, and the meaning is clear. Death. Rigor Mortis. Burial.

Not a ‘kind’ of death.

In the Catholic Church, we have evolved a theology of suffering that many of our Protestant brethren have rejected, or don’t fully understand. Saint Paul, in Colossians 1:24 states:

“Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.”

Properly understood, we join our sufferings to those of Christ on the Cross to complete His suffering for the sake of the body of the Church. That extends to the body of Christ undergoing their period of purification in Purgatory, as well as for those here on earth.

Suffering perfects us as humans. It calls forth reserves of love, and helps cast our relationships in new models of understanding. It often fosters reconciliation between God and man, as well as between humans. It all depends on how we are pre-disposed to understanding and managing suffering.

When I visit Luke, there are days when he is more lucid than others. There are times when he doesn’t recognize me. I get it, regarding the pain.

None of that justifies a Minister condoning the warehousing of the old model and divorcing her to run off with the next pretty face to come along. The old man’s wife may be leading him to his perfection as a human being. To be certain it is a terrible cross to bear, but Rev. Robertson the supposed scriptural wizzard forgot this little gem from 1 Corinthians 10:13

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

We’re supposed to strengthen one another through prayer and fellowship, not confirm one another in our weakness and despair. In marriage, self-fulfillment takes a back seat to self-sacrifice. My only question for this poor fellow is this:

After a lifetime together, isn’t she worth sacrificing for?

To Reverend Robertson:

You have squandered your moral authority by making a sacred vow fungible. It’s time you left the stage. On your way out, contemplate Loman’s rebuke to you:

“You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away — a man is not a piece of fruit.”

In a recent article at LifeNews, “Possible Treatment for Down Syndrome Raises Ethics Questions,” author Effie Caldarola raises the ethical issue of treating those with Down Syndrome with a new drug under development by Dr. Alberto Costa. The new drug promises to stimulate and normalize growth in the Hippocampus of the brain, leading to improved cognitive function, and presumably enhanced academic and vocational performance.

The issue at hand is whether or not such medical intervention is an assault on the fundamental, ontological reality and identity of the individual. For some, such an intervention represents a devaluation of the individual as they are constituted by their nuclear chromosomal configuration and subsequent developmental patterning.

It is a delicate question, and deserves a respectful hearing.

I write my rejoinder to Caldarola as the father of a twelve year-old son who was diagnosed at age five with autism, ADD, and a few other neurological impairments; so it is not without complete understanding that I see both sides of the issue.

Let us consider Joseph’s autism and the ethical/moral demands it places on us as parents, and before that what the ethical/moral demands are on any parents.

All parents have a moral obligation to raise their children to be as completely self-sufficient and functional in adulthood as they can be. We are our children’s launch pad and mission control center in life. That process involves a substantial number of years spent in school learning fundamental academics, problem-solving skills, vocational skills, life skills, and social skills. The best and brightest among us struggle in one or more of the areas along the way. Through it all, parents begin in a very directive role and graduate to being mentors when their children reach adulthood.

The learning that takes place for the child is thought to occur in the classroom, on the basketball court, etc. In truth, it does not.

Learning is a neurological process that takes place in the brain. That brain relies on multiple sensory inputs resulting in the stimulation of new neural cells being generated, and new connections being made between new and existing neurons. We take that brain to the classroom, the speech therapist, the occupational therapist, the physical therapist, and the psychological therapist for very selected and targeted interventions meant to effect the greatest possible degree of change in the child with autism or Down Syndrome.

We do so because we have an obligation to do so. It would be criminal negligence to ignore the normal needs of the healthiest child, and all the more if we did absolutely nothing for the special needs child. All of our interventions in school and in therapy are aimed at stimulating growth and development in a brain that has some serious flaws in the normal unfolding of the genetic program.

From this neurological vantage point we now consider what it is that Dr. Costa is attempting, and what it is that folks find objectionable about it.

Dr. Costa is trying to aid the process of neurological development that takes place in school and in the various therapies. His medical approach, absent any serious side-effects, would prepare the neurological environment, fertilizing the ground as it were, for the interventions of the therapists. Such fertilization is intended to maximize the yield of those educators and therapists who plant and cultivate the seeds.

What, then, can be so objectionable about that?

Joseph’s autism has sculpted him, yet it doesn’t entirely define him. Being a scientist, I have approached Joseph’s diagnoses from the perspective of looking at what in his neurological environment is preventing him from attaining that knowledge and those skills that will help him to function as an independent adult long after my wife and I are gone.

Do we want Joseph to only become “functional enough” and then leave him looking sufficiently autistic? No, of course not. We want him to be all that he is capable of becoming, given the brain with which God has blessed him. He will never not have autism. He will forever retain certain of the traits that define autism. However, we want him to have as many options in life as possible.

This isn’t because we reject his autism. It’s because his autism ought not limit his options if there is anything we can do about it.

Joseph’s great dignity does not come from having autism. It comes from being a child of a loving God, entrusted to a mother and father who love him simply as their son. It matters not how he is neurologically configured. We don’t love him any more or less than we love his sisters. We love him simply because he is our son, and that love compels us to seek the very best for him in life.

Parents of those with Down Syndrome are no different. However, some have come to define their child by the child’s developmental and neurological configuration, and not by the more metaphysical realities. Like Joseph, high academic achievement in the child with Down Syndrome will never ameliorate their underlying physical reality.

What it can do is give that child a different kind of laughter and joy.

I wrote earlier today of the passing into eternity of my friend and 9/11 hero, Kevin McQuade.

I came home tonight to news of another newly minted saint. Baby Emily (name changed), a child born this month with catastrophic developmental anomalies entered into her rest this evening. This is a baby that many in the pro-life movement rallied around when it appeared that the hospital might have been pushing for mom to disconnect life support before the mom was ready.

There is something poignant about baby Emily’s story that I would just like to reflect upon for a moment. In the case of a baby born with catastrophic anomalies, it is important to do research and look for teams that handle the difficulty and seek out second and even third opinions. From what I was able to ascertain, the hospital did this at some point. However, we were able to find a noteworthy team that hadn’t been contacted.

The prognoses were consistent and clear: nothing on earth could be done for this baby.

In such circumstances it is vital, VITAL to bear in mind that there is not one patient, but two, before us. The mother, being postpartum, is also a medical patient. She may be experiencing postpartum depression, exacerbated by the catastrophic circumstances before her. HOW things are handled will determine if the mother lives the next 50 years with second-thoughts and self-loathing, or with a sense of satisfaction that she did all she could for her child.

Over the past few days the baby’s body began to shut down. Her mom was a hero to me, not wanting to quit and working to overturn every stone. I told her of my high esteem for her courage, love, and tenacity. But there comes a point when respirators and other interventions can actually become burdensome to the dying patient, and I explained to mom that the doctors at this point were telling her the truth.

What baby Emily needed now was not mommy the lioness, but just mommy to hold her and comfort her as she finished her brief pilgrimage here among us. I shared this with mom as well.

So, tonight baby Emily died quietly in mommy’s arms, surrounded by a loving family. Her mom emerges from this experience having spent a couple of extra weeks in the NICU than if she had given up on her baby sooner. Perhaps some mothers can process the reality sooner and accept the reality sooner than others.

But Emily’s two extra weeks on the respirator actually aided in buying her mother the time she needed to satisfy herself that indeed there was nothing that could be done. The result? One of the patients went straight to Heaven, and the other went home to live out the rest of her life with a sense of integrity about how she tried to save her baby’s fragile life.

That gets lost in all of the talk about medical economics. However, as the great psychologist Erik Erikson taught us, the end of life is characterized by us evaluating our lives either with a sense of integrity, or despair.

Getting one mother there with integrity?

Priceless.

Please pray for Emily’s family, and for my friend Kevin’s family, who also did it with integrity.

We have two new advocates before the Father tonight.

Many thanks to all of the pro-lifers who helped this family: Alliance Defense Fund, Terri Schiavo Help and Hope Network, Premie Prints, AAPLOG, The National Catholic Bioethics Center, Peg Kolm of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., and Be Not Afraid.

The family was lifted up by all of that love and support.

My latest article for LifeNews.com

This week, one of the most searing and difficult bioethical cases I have ever encountered was brought to my attention. It involves a premature baby born with serious and substantial developmental anomalies that will in all likelihood cost this little one her life. Before going further with the story, what are most needed at this moment are prayers for Emily (name changed), her mom, and her family. Identifying information has been changed to safeguard the family’s privacy.

Emily was born with over a dozen heart defects, and her trachea and esophagus are joined into one common tube at one point. Because of this defect, the baby can’t eat, as her milk would go into the lungs. She can’t be fed through a tube into the stomach, because any regurgitation would likewise go to the lung. She is on a ventilator with oxygen and receiving morphine, as well as an IV.

When this was called to my attention, I spoke with the mother who was all alone and facing a team of physicians aggressively pushing her to disconnect the baby from life support, telling her that she was making her baby suffer needlessly, that there was no hope for surviving reconstructive surgery. Never mind that morphine attenuates pain and suffering. Second opinions were only sought after the mother’s steadfast refusal to quit on her baby.

I consulted a number of folks who direct organizations in the pro-life movement who could shed light on how to proceed. Legal counsel, medical advice, advocacy, etc., all began to take shape within 24 hours. Researching this defect led to an authoritative team of surgeons who have dealt with this rare condition. They don’t think the baby could survive the surgery. Others have yet to respond.

While things may very well end poorly sooner rather than later, this case along with that of baby Joseph from Canada earlier this year calls out for something new in the pro-life movement.

Read the rest HERE.

Watching medicine succumb to physician-assisted suicide in the western states, Obama’s death panels, insurance companies being forced to pay for contraception, conscience protections for medical professionals being squeezed, pregnancy reductions proceed all the way to killing a twin to produce a singleton, the obscene funding of embryonic stem cell research, gay marriage…

Many ask how it is we got here. It wasn’t by leaps and bounds, but by incrementalism. All along the way, our caution was ridiculed by the other side. “That’s ridiculous! That’ll never happen!” we were told repeatedly. And then, slowly but surely, we arrived to where we are today.

Consider this quote from former Chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics, Leon Kass, M.D., in Human Cloning and Human Dignity, The Report of the President’s Council on Bioethics:

“We should not be self-deceived about our ability to set limits on the exploitation of nascent life. What disturbs us today we quickly or eventually get used to; yesterday’s repugnance gives way to tomorrow’s endorsement. A society that already tolerates the destruction of fetuses in the second and third trimesters will hardly be horrified by embryo and fetus farming (including in animal wombs), if this should turn out to be helpful in the cure of dreaded diseases.

“We realize, of course, that many proponents of cloning-for-biomedical-research will recommend regulations designed to prevent just such abuses (that is, the expansion of research to later-stage cloned embryos and fetuses). Refusing to erect a red light to stop research cloning, they will propose various yellow lights intended to assure ourselves that we are proceeding with caution, limits, or tears. Paradoxically, however, the effect might actually be to encourage us to continue proceeding with new (or more hazardous) avenues of research; for, believing that we are being cautious, we have a good conscience about what we do, and we are unable to imagine ourselves as people who could take a morally disastrous next step. We are neither wise enough nor good enough to live without clear limits.”

It’s time we backed political candidates who espouse clear, red lights.