California’s Proposition 8, which defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman, is under a barrage of protest and legal scrutiny. As I mentioned earlier this week, it will likely come before the state Supreme Court, who will rule on its constitutionality. But, you might object, . . . . Continue Reading »
Comment Visions, an international on-line debate forum, asked my view on the following question: Biotechnology has been hailed as the wonder industry of the 21st Century, but are we capable of controlling it?Here is my reply:Biotechnology offers tremendous promise and peril. The peril arises, in my . . . . Continue Reading »
If you’re looking for an author who can help you argue about the origins of human life and the beginning of personhood, Maureen Condic is very good. She’s written a number of articles in First Things on the beginning of human life and stem cells ( here , here , and here , to name but . . . . Continue Reading »
Today, the BBC has some good news to report in the field of adult stem-cell research. A woman in Spain has successfully received a new windpipe after doctors coated the donated trachea with cells made from the patient’s own body: Five months on, the patient, thirty-year-old mother-of-two . . . . Continue Reading »
The philosopher Jean-Luc Marion has been elected to the Académie Française, filling the chair vacated in August 2007 by the death of Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger. Renowned for his scholarship on Descartes, Marion is one of the great Catholic intellectuals of our time. In its . . . . Continue Reading »
The National Kidney Foundation is apparently considering supporting a market in organs. This is a very bad idea. It is taking a public survey. If you wish to weigh in, here’s the . . . . Continue Reading »
Sickening. Just sickening. A public official in the UK who is “Labour’s czar for the elderly,” posits a duty to die by having society refuse to medically support demented patients, and denigrates them with the V-Epithet to boot. From the story: Dame Joan Bakewell says she does not . . . . Continue Reading »
While much of the talk on this blog, appropriately enough, has been about the opportunities presented in defeat for a rethinking of conservative principles there might also be some occasssion for a reassessment of contemporary liberalism as well. The media insists on presenting Obama’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Judith Graham at the Chicago Tribune reports : Babies born to couples who rely on medical technology to become pregnant have much higher rates of certain birth defects, according to a study published online Monday in the journal [ Obstetrics & Gynecology ]. The report from the federal Centers . . . . Continue Reading »
Expounding further on a theme I began yesterday: Western culture is profoundly—and I think on several important bioethical issues. implacably—split about what is right and what is wrong. These issues range from abortion, to euthanasia, to embryonic stem cell research, to removing feeding . . . . Continue Reading »
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