The Giving and Taking of Organs

In The Patient as Person, published almost forty years ago, when transplantation technology was still in its early stages, Paul Ramsey considered different ways of procuring organs for transplant. One might invite people to “opt in,” to donate organs to be used after their death (or, in the case of a paired organ such as [...]

Read Full Post »

Gay Marriage and Natural Kinds

What does Aristotle have to do with same-sex marriage?
Aristotle held that the human race, in addition to being divided into male and female, was also divided into slave and free. This latter division was not merely conventional or legal; like the male-female division, it was a product of nature. Just as nature had made some [...]

Read Full Post »

What’s happening over the holiday break at Semper Vita?

Dear blog watchers!
Our usual daily news updates will take a break from Tuesday 23 December 2008, and they will resume again on Monday 26 January 2009.
During the Christmas break we will be publishing a new and interesting pro-life, marriage or family post each day.
Have a great Christmas and a happy new year!
The team at Family [...]

Read Full Post »

Abortion and the Rights of Fathers

A fundamental assumption leading to the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade was that because women are biologically tied to the birth process, they should therefore bear all responsibility in deciding the life or death of their children. The reason for this perspective is straightforward: Roe v. Wade rejected the idea that another person [...]

Read Full Post »

The Sixties, Again and Again

Campaigning for the French presidency last year, Nicolas Sarkozy ran hard against what Europeans still refer to as 1968, describing the post-1968 New Left as “immoral” and “cynical” and defining the choice before the French electorate in stark terms: “In this election, the question is whether the heritage of May ’68 should be perpetuated, or [...]

Read Full Post »

AIDS and the Churches: Getting the Story Right

Responses to the global HIV/AIDS epidemic are often driven not by evidence but by ideology, stereotypes, and false assumptions. Referring to the hyperepidemics of Africa, an article in The Lancet this fall named “ten myths” that impede prevention efforts—including “Poverty and discrimination are the problem,” “Condoms are the answer,” and “Sexual behavior will not change.” [...]

Read Full Post »

Can I live?

Read Full Post »

Is Capitalism Ruining Christmas?

Catholics are seriously annoyed at the way the holiday season is changing. If you are among them, you are probably already annoyed at this article, because I didn’t say Christmas season. It is Christmas, for goodness sake, so why can’t we just say that? I received an e-mail the other day from Amazon.com headlined, “The [...]

Read Full Post »

The Vindication of Humanae Vitae

That Humanae Vitae and related Catholic teachings about sexual morality are laughingstocks in all the best places is not exactly news. Even in the benighted precincts of believers, where information from the outside world is known to travel exceedingly slowly, everybody grasps that this is one doctrine the world loves to hate. During Benedict XVI’s [...]

Read Full Post »

Children’s Books, Lost and Found

Just in time for Christmas shopping, Joseph Bottum surveys the canon of children’s literature.

Read Full Post »