Embarking from childhood into adulthood presents all human beings with the dilemma of discerning where their future will take them. In the Catholic faith, human beings are called to either Holy Matrimony and family life or a vocation which leads them to celibacy, such as choosing the priesthood or religious life. This decision is more complicated for women in part because the reality of human reproduction dictates that their prime reproductive years are limited. In this article, the author argues in favor of young women called to Holy Matrimony and family life pursuing that call first and choosing a profession later in life.

Palliative care and hospice are growing fields in health care. Both require special attention from medical professionals with an understanding of suffering as a gift. The author explores the end-of-life care through a Christocentric lens that sees the whole person: body and soul. The objective is to embrace the unavoidable struggle that the end of life brings with an eye to the sanctifying nature of suffering.

Harm reduction strategies aim at protecting those with substance use disorders from using in dangerous situations. This is done by providing safe injection sites with clean needles, as well as other controlled situations that prevent the spread of disease and decrease the likelihood of overdose. Some argue that this encourages dangerous behavior when the best approach would be to encourage abstinence. However, advocates say that harm reduction strategies give the best opportunity for counseling and offer hope for recovery. This article explores both arguments.

The phrase assigned X at birth is becoming normalized as modern gender theory pushes against the traditional ways of thinking and speaking about gender. This phrase has no place in respectable dialogue about sex and gender because its logic – a flawed version of flawed feminism – distorts how human beings ordinarily attend to the sexed body at birth. I will briefly be examining how the logic behind this phrase obscures a teleological view of the body and conclude that no one is actually assigned a sex a birth because each person is recognized as male or female by the ordinary observation of their human nature and its teleological boundaries.

This is an excerpt from an essay published previously on our website.

Societal views of the place of transgender and intersex individuals and the right of such individuals to participate in activities and institutions previously made unavailable to them based on sex are changing rapidly. While many institutions are allowing such people to engage in activities previously reserved for the sex opposite from their biological sex, the Catholic church must stand firm in its fidelity to the truth of human sexuality. However, groups within the Church have expressed differing views; namely, the German Synod and its recent text titled, “Dealing with Gender Diversity.” This paper seeks to examine the synod’s conclusions and refutes them using appeals to Orthodox Catholic teaching.

The Human Genome project has begun over 30 years ago and ran into the early 2000s, completing the total mapping of more than three billion DNA base-pairs in the human genome. Studying this has revealed significant information into the heritability of different traits. In this article, David Chen and Kevin Shaw examine the heritability of a selection of mental illnesses with special attention to what the appropriate approach to treating such illnesses is.

Hunger strikes have long been a method used by individuals with limited power to change their circumstances as a way of drawing attention to injustices suffered, whether actual or perceived. However, those responsible for the care of such people have a competing responsibility to their care, including making certain they are properly nourished. This article discusses whether it is appropriate to force-feed an individual on a hunger strike, using a Catholic ethical framework to explore the issue.

Roughly 6.5 million people in the United States have Alzheimer’s Disease and while there are a number of risk factors for developing the disease, the second largest risk factor comes from Apolipoprotein E. This protein plays a central role in fat metabolism. Alleles of the APOE gene can have a significant impact on an individual’s likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s. This article explores the value of genetic testing for this particular risk factor.

The question of whether an assessment of brain death is appropriate to declare actual death, particularly in the case of organ donation, is a heavily debated one in modern medicine, especially in the realm of Catholic bioethics. Recently proposed changes to the Uniform Law Commission’s Uniform Determination of Death Act threatens to complicate the matter by redefining brain death to better fit the results of the existing test rather than changing the test to better evaluate the condition of a patient’s brain. The proposal abandons the standard medical imperative to pursue the good of the patient in favor of a utilitarian mindset based solely on functionality. In short, the new proposal is not only counter to the Catholic concept of bioethics, but also counter to the best practices of medicine.

Burial of human remains is a sacred process in the Catholic faith, as well as many others. However, burial can also have a serious impact on the surrounding environment. As such, human composting has been proposed as a solution to the economic impact of burial. This article discusses the issue, process, and ethical ramifications of human composting through a Catholic bioethical lense.

Sex differentiation is a hot button topic in current public discussion, with some saying that the differences between male and female are of little consequence to the concept of gender in society. In this article, Cook explores the question of whether sex is substance or accident in accordance with Aristotelian philosophy as a way to gain a clearer understanding of sex differentiation that modern times sorely need. Drawing on two thousand years of intellectual tradition through both Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, Cook provides a concise understanding of the ‘why’ of classic understandings of sex differentiation and makes a strong defense of the position that Aristotelian philosophy favors a concept of sex as immutable.

A major concern of organizations that monitor the practices of hospitals and other health care providers is the rationing of care based on inappropriate criteria. This article explores examples of this trend in health care. First, a tendency during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to limit care to patients with a Do Not Resuscitate order even though their condition did not require resuscitation. Next, the article explores two cases where doctors were hesitant to give extensive care to patients whose ‘quality of life’ was considered too low to be worth treating, even though the patients and their families were willing to go through the difficult treatments to have more time together. The stories illustrate a departure from patient-centric health care toward a devaluing of individual lives through dispassionate focus on the physician’s perception of a patient’s ‘quality of life.’

The Catholic perspective on end-of-life care focuses on the value of the individual person, rather than the burden a person nearing death might place on family and health care institutions. In a culture where euthanasia is becoming a more accepted act, the Catholic approach to palliative and hospice care is vital to protecting our most vulnerable brothers and sisters. This article was originally posted on May 21, 2021.

On December 23, 2022, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) changed its Drug Facts Label for Plan B One-Step (PBOS), removing language that, since 2006, had stated that PBOS “may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium).” The FDA’s action has created the impression that PBOS and similar, generic levonorgestrel-based drugs used for “emergency contraception” (LNG-EC) have no effect on the survival of a conceived human being. The FDA did not address all factors relevant to how LNG-EC can impact human life after fertilization. These factors, and other ethical questions surrounding the change, are discussed in this article by the NCBC ethicists

The following story is an excerpt from a forthcoming book on coping with chronic illness. It discusses focusing on the personhood of an individual rather than their illness, particularly in the case of children with cancer. The forthcoming book will be published by the National Catholic Bioethics Center and give a number of perspectives on the difficulties and spiritual benefits of overcoming chronic disease.