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1. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Colloquy
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2. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Edward J. Furton, MA, PhD In This Issue
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3. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
William L. Saunders Jr. Washington Insider
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essays
4. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Rev. Linus Dolce, OSB Injustice Perpetrated on the Dead: A Christian Perspective on Body Worlds
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At a Body Worlds exhibition, human corpses are displayed as museum pieces for educational purposes. The bodies are preserved by plastination, a technique invented by Gunther von Hagens and engineered at the Institute for Plastination in Heidelberg, Germany. Because of the wide controversy surrounding the displays, it is necessary to study how justice obtains. Understood from a Thomistic perspective, the use of a plastinate by Body Worlds is unjust because it dishonors the donor. The goodness of that use fails in terms of object, end, and circumstance. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.4 (Winter 2010): 667–676.
5. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Christopher D. Hare At the Original Position as a Fetus: Rawlsian Political Theory and Catholic Bioethics
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The approach of liberal political philosopher John Rawls on the issue of abortion relied on his construct of “public reason,” in which citizens in a pluralistic democracy restrict the use of deliberative arguments and reasons that are drawn from their “irreconcilable comprehensive doctrines,” including their religious worldviews. From this reasoning, Rawls concludes that a just society is one that includes the legal right to abortion. However, the author contends that the use of another of Rawls’s theories—“justice as fairness”—leads to an alternative conclusion: that legally sanctioned abortion represents the unjust persecution of a specific population—the unborn. Further, this same theoretical approach supports the egalitarian application of Catholic social thought to protect the fetus as a uniquely vulnerable position in society. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.4 (Winter 2010): 677–686.
6. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
The Most Reverend Mark J. Seitz Check Your Faith at the Door: The Dilemma of the Catholic Citizen
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Since America was founded, faith informed its moral genius. From the Declaration of Independence to the work of Martin Luther King Jr., belief in God positively shaped the moral awareness of the nation. This article suggests that political discourse emerging in the middle of the twentieth century, which effectively prohibits the mention of faith in serious political conversation, is having devastating consequences on the moral capacity of contemporary society. It suggests that such faith-less political discourse contradicts America’s founding logic. This article also reasserts the Catholic claim that truth can be known and that in the face of faith-less political discourse, Catholics are morally bound to seek complete truth, which requires faith. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.4 (Winter 2010): 687–693.
7. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Stan Dundon Denying Food and Water: The Real-World Implications
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Life-support technology may become a death-prolonging horror, and some people may fear that an over-intellectualized interpretation of traditional moral teaching has led us astray from what a compassionate God wills for the dying. The author addresses this fear. Those who defend “orthodox” teaching on end-of-life issues have a serious obligation not to obscure the compassion implicit in the traditional distinction between ordinary and extraordinary means. There is no medical or moral obligation to prolong dying or make it more burdensome with interventions that offer little benefit, and there is nothing immoral about pain relief. What is prohibited is killing: any action or omission that has the express or implicit purpose of ending a life. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.4 (Winter 2010): 695–705.
articles
8. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Rev. Kevin D. O’Rourke, OP Catholic Principles and In Vitro Fertilization
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In the 2008 Instruction Dignitas personae (The Dignity of the Person), the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith presented once again the teaching of the Church on in vitro fertilization. Much of this teaching was contained in the earlier Instruction Donum vitae (The Gift of Life, 1987), but the new document brings the teaching of the Church up to date. Because the teaching is not accepted in the secular scientific community and is often unknown in the Catholic community, this article explores the process of IVF, the view of the Church concerning it, and the fundamental principles underlying the Church’s teaching. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.4 (Winter 2010): 709–722.
9. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Rev. Grzegorz Holub, SDB Creating Better People?: Some Considerations on Genetic Enhancement
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Genetic engineering promises to change the human condition by changing certain human characteristics. Why not take control of such changes and secure positive outcomes, making use of our progressing knowledge about human genetic make-up and our increasingly sophisticated skills? This paper elaborates the meanings of the word “change,” a cornerstone of the enhancement debate, focusing not on technicalities of genetic engineering but on philosophical implications of its implementation. The paper then turns to some of the complexities and difficulties of the debate. Finally, it takes up a strictly philosophical investigation of what we mean by “change” as far as a basic structure of the human being (the human person) is concerned, and examines what conclusions can be drawn for genetic enhancement. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.4 (Winter 2010): 723–740.
10. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Rev. Deacon Thomas J. Davis Jr. Plan B Agonistics: Doubt, Debate, and Denial
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Researches over many years have examined whether levonorgestrel emergency contraception (Plan B, Next Choice) has a postfertilization effect. In a recent article in the Catholic Health Association’s journal Health Progress, Sandra Reznik, MD, asserts that “levonorgestrel acts to prevent pregnancy before, and only before, fertilization occurs.” A companion article by Ron Hamel, PhD, argues for the moral certainty that Plan B is not an abortifacient. Reznik fails to address the principal model supporting a potential postfertil­ization mechanism of action, specifically, that preovulatory administration of levonorgestrel disrupts the delicate ratio of estrogen and progesterone essential to healthy endometrial development and induces the equivalent of luteal phase insufficiency, thereby jeopardizing implantation. Hamel’s argument for moral certitude is similarly inadequate. This article critically reviews both articles and the sources on which they rely. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.4 (Winter 2010): 741–772.
notes & abstracts
11. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Rev. Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco Science
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12. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Journals in Science
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13. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
John M. Travaline, MD, FACP Medicine
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14. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Journals in Medicine
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15. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Christopher Kaczor, PhD Philosophy and Theology
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16. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Journals in Philosophy and Theology
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book reviews
17. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Michael E. Allsopp The Case against Assisted Suicide: For the Right to End-of-Life Care edited by Kathleen Foley and Herbert Hendin and The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia by Neil M. Gorsuch
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18. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Br. Ezra Sullivan, OP Good and Evil Actions: A Journey through Saint Thomas Aquinas by Steven J. Jensen
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19. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Rev. David N. Beauregard, OMV A History of Catholic Moral Theology in the Twentieth Century: From Confessing Sins to Liberating Consciences by James F. Keenan, SJ
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20. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly: Volume > 10 > Issue: 4
Rev. Richard Umbers Virtue Epistemology: Motivation and Knowledge by Stephen Napier
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