Time for a family discussion. The personhood debate has been a searing one, and I must confess that I tend to come down on the side of the personhood amendments. Folks have written to me from both sides of the aisle on this one, and I feel somewhat like a dazed and confused fish out [...]
Archive for the ‘Personhood’ Category
The Personhood Debate: Myopic Vision v. Recklessness, or Pragmatism v. Principle?
Posted in Personhood on August 20, 2011 | 23 Comments »
The Personhood Movement
Posted in Personhood on August 20, 2011 | 9 Comments »
There is a curious divide in the pro-life movement between those who support the various Personhood initiatives, trying to get legal language that recognizes human embryos as human persons. The Catholic bishops have come out against these initiatives, though I haven’t heard a cogent explanation as to why. Perhaps those more familiar would care to [...]
A Case for Embryo Adoption?
Posted in Biomedical Ethics, Personhood, tagged Dignitas Personae, Embryo Adoption on April 14, 2011 | 52 Comments »
The issue of embryo adoption, having leftover embryos frozen in liquid nitrogen thawed and implanted in an adoptive mother’s womb, is a thorny subject in Catholic moral theology and ethics circles. I’ve wrestled with this idea for years, and I think we need to continue attending to it in a serious and substantive way. In [...]
More From the Scientific Community on the Identity and Status of the Human Embryo
Posted in Biomedical Ethics, Development, Dignity, Personhood, Quotes, Right to Life, tagged Embryo, Princeton Pro-Life on January 7, 2010 | 69 Comments »
Compliments of Princeton Pro-Life “Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote.” [England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31] “Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as [...]
The Identity and Status of the Human Embryo
Posted in Development, Dignity, Personhood, Quotes, Right to Life, tagged Developmental Biology, Embryo on January 5, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Chris, a commenter in the embryonic stem cell post passes along these great quotes from medical texts. Many thanks Chris! “Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression ‘fertilized ovum’ refers to the zygote.” – [...]
Genetics: The Nature v. Nurture Argument
Posted in Abortion, Biomedical Ethics, Birth Control, Dignity, DNA, Eugenics, Margaret Sanger, Personhood, Right to Life, tagged Eugenics, Genetics, Nature Nurture, Sanger on January 4, 2010 | 11 Comments »
In light of our ongoing treatment of Sanger and the Eugenics Movement, it’s fair to ask if the eugenists have any merit to their argument. No, they don’t. From a Christian anthropological perspective, the least among us is made in the image and likeness of God. Jesus tells us in Matthew 25 that He will [...]
Margaret Sanger on Charity and Philanthropy
Posted in Abortion, Birth Control, Margaret Sanger, Personhood, Planned Parenthood, Right to Life, Sex Education, tagged Charity, Eugenics, Margaret Sanger, Philanthropy on January 3, 2010 | 12 Comments »
This week continues with a series of posts examining the anthropological assumptions and philosophical underpinnings of Margaret Sanger’s world view. It is every bit as unrelenting and unsparing as her Planned Parenthood. One of the commenters in the comboxes challenged Sanger’s treatment here, suggesting that the scholarship being done at NYU ought to merit serious [...]
The Case for Embryo-Destructive Research
Posted in Abortion, Biomedical Ethics, Dignity, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Personhood, Right to Life, Stem Cell Therapy, tagged Abortion, Adult Stem Cells, Embryo-destructive Research, Embryonic Stem Cells, pro-choice, Pro-Life on January 3, 2010 | 16 Comments »
Why, in the face of hundreds of extant therapeutic applications from Adult Stem Cells (ASC), would researchers wish to pursue embryo-destructive research when Embryonic Stem Cells (ESC) haven’t made it out of animal trials because of their tumor-forming propensities? As a Molecular Biologist, I am asked this question frequently by pro-lifers. Though I am adamantly [...]
Montana Supreme Court Approves Physician Assisted Suicide
Posted in Biomedical Ethics, Dignity, Eugenics, Personhood, Physician Assisted Suicide, tagged Death With Dignity, Montana, Physician Assisted Suicide on January 2, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Montana has become the third state to approve physician-assisted suicide, after a divided State Supreme Court voted in a 5-3 ruling that said physician assisted suicide violates no laws . Read it here in the Christian Science Monitor. As curtjester noted on a post below, once again it’s the courts doing the dirty work. Death [...]
Culture of Death: Defining Infant Mortality
Posted in Abortion, Biomedical Ethics, Cloning, Dignity, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Eugenics, Personhood, tagged Abortion, Bioethics, in vitro fertilization, Infant Mortality on January 2, 2010 | 4 Comments »
Abortion and abortion’s apologists have succeeded in twisting and distorting even a once-objective, just-the-facts, and statistically-oriented discipline as Public Health. In the not-so distant past, pregnancy was defined in medical textbooks as the result of fertilization of egg by sperm. Now it’s defined as implantation of the embryo in the uterus. Semantics? Hardly. This represents [...]
In Case You Missed This…
Posted in Abortion, Biomedical Ethics, Dignity, Personhood, tagged Abortion, Invitro fertilization, Ireland, Personhood on January 2, 2010 | 1 Comment »
This today from the Journal, Science Science 1 January 2010: Vol. 327. no. 5961, p. 25 DOI: 10.1126/science.327.5961.25 Prev | Table of Contents | Next NEWS OF THE WEEK IRELAND: Embryo Ruling Keeps Stem Cell Research Legal Gretchen Vogel A ruling from the Irish Supreme Court has reignited that country’s debate over the legal status [...]
Great Reading
Posted in Biomedical Ethics, Birth Control, Condoms, Dignity, Eugenics, Margaret Sanger, Personhood, Planned Parenthood, Sex Education, tagged Alan Guttmacher, Alfred Kinsey, Archtects of the Culture of Death, Benjamin Wiker, Donald De Marco, Friedrich Nietze, Margaret Sanger on December 31, 2009 | 6 Comments »
If anyone is interested in one of the best reads for a pro-lifer, may I suggest: Architects of the Culture of Death This book looks at several key figures over the past 150 years who have contributed to building the Culture of Death. I’ll share a few of those written about: Margaret Sanger, Alfred Kinsey, [...]
The Gospel Response to Sanger’s Eugenics
Posted in Biomedical Ethics, Birth Control, Dignity, Eugenics, Margaret Sanger, Personhood, Right to Life, Sex Education, tagged Eugenics, Jesus, Judgment, Margaret Sanger on December 31, 2009 | 3 Comments »
If it seems that Sanger is being pounded here, she is. And for good cause. Margaret Sanger is one of the chief architects of the Culture of Death. Dismantling that culture requires a thorough deconstruction of all that Sanger built, much in the name of science. Here, Margaret Sanger, architect of the Culture of Death: [...]
What Sanger Missed: The Dignity of All Persons in Jesus
Posted in Biomedical Ethics, Dignity, Eugenics, Family, Fathers of the Church, Margaret Sanger, Motherhood, Personhood, Planned Parenthood, Right to Life, tagged Christian Anthropology, Dignity, Margaret Sanger, Nativity, Pope St. Leo the Great on December 31, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Today is the seventh day of the Octave of Christmas. In today’s Liturgy of the Hours, Office of Readings Pope St. Gregory the Great meditates not just on our human dignity being elevated by becoming members of the Body of Christ in Baptism, but also on our dignity being elevated by sharing in His Nativity, [...]
Sanger The Eugenist
Posted in Abortion, Biomedical Ethics, Birth Control, Condoms, Dignity, Eugenics, Family, Margaret Sanger, Motherhood, Personhood, Planned Parenthood, Right to Life, Sex Education, tagged Eugenics, Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood on December 31, 2009 |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . This is George Grant’s well-written, scholarly work on Sanger’s deadly legacy. It’s offered to the reader in order to show how Margaret Sanger hitched her deadly agenda to the junk [...]
