If one of the new male sperm meets and unites with an egg cell, a new life begins.
From The Gift of Life , a pamphlet published in 1951 by Planned Parenthood.
How broadly, though, do we want to use the adjective “Christian”? I don’t make Christian art: I’m a Christian who makes art. Heard that line before? I have too, and usually as a justification for bad art. But the Christian chiseling away at the marble has unique and privileged access to the universe, and you’d think that would be good for something .
— Matthew Lee Anderson at Mere Orthodoxy
If realism means the representation of life as it is actually lived, I do not see why lives which are actually lived on a higher emotional plane are not so eligible for representation as those lived on a lower plane.
—Alfred J. Nock, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man
[I]t’s true that the average guy on the street doesn’t understand economics, and it’s also true that we [economists] don’t understand economics. We just have a more sophisticated lack of understanding than the guy on the street.
— Raquel Fernández , Professor of Economics at NYU.
Religious liberty is also prior to the state itself. It is not merely a privilege that the government grants us and so may take away at will. Instead, religious liberty is inherent in our very humanity, hard-wired into each and every one of us by
our Creator. Thus government has a perennial obligation to acknowledge and protect religious liberty as fundamental, no matter the moral and political trends of the moment. This insight as well is reflected in the laws and traditions of our country from its very inception. The Declaration of Independence boldly proclaimed as a self-evident truth that our inalienable rights are “endowed by our Creator”—not by the State.
— Most Reverend William E. Lori , Bishop of Bridgeport, on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops before the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives, Subcommittee on the Constitution.
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