Dear readers, in just a few hours I will be on the radio in Lexington, KY. Today we will be discussing the bioethical complexities of transhumanism and performance enhancing drugs — which was the subject of episode 3 of BioTalk.
Click the image above to tune in to the Mike Allen Show live at 5pm EDT.
Absolute must-read from Jennifer Lahl at Christianity Today:
The fact that so many people fail to consider the moral implications of IVF suggests that in the age of fertility treatments, surrogates, and modern family-building via parenting partnerships, a woman’s womb has come to be seen as a somewhat arbitrary location. NBC’s The New Normal quips that women are “Easy-Bake Ovens” and children are “cupcakes.”
In Scripture, God affirms that what happens in utero matters and cannot be casually or disrespectfully dismissed. The womb, where God first knits us together (Ps. 139:13-14), is not an arbitrary place for a child to grow and develop. In fact, modern science has proven just how important those 9 months are—for both mother and child.
Renowned marriage and family therapist Nancy Verrier, in her book The Primal Wound, writes about how mothers are biologically, hormonally, and emotionally programmed to bond with their babies in utero as well as at birth. A baby knows his or her mother at birth, and both the mother and the baby will experience grief at any separation at the time of birth. This primal wound is forever present.
In other words, it’s nowhere as easy as the Easy-Bake metaphor. In the case of surrogacy, we can interrupt the natural rhythm for mother and child and risk negative effects. (It is worth noting that surrogacy differs from adoption in that surrogacy intentionally establishes a situation that demands that a woman not bond with the child she is carrying.)
More from me:
The Catholic Church is No Enemy of Science or the Infertile
Sorry, Cryo-Kids, This is The New Normal. “Get Over It”
Porn Not the Only Industry Commodifying Women
‘Reproductive Rights’ Run Amok
What can we do to make peace in the world? As Pope John said, it pertains to each individual to establish new relationships in human society under the mastery and guidance of justice and love (cf. John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, [11 April 1963]: AAS 55, [1963], 301-302).
All men and women of good will are bound by the task of pursuing peace. I make a forceful and urgent call to the entire Catholic Church, and also to every Christian of other confessions, as well as to followers of every religion and to those brothers and sisters who do not believe: peace is a good which overcomes every barrier, because it belongs to all of humanity!
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To this end, brothers and sisters, I have decided to proclaim for the whole Church on 7 September next, the vigil of the birth of Mary, Queen of Peace, a day of fasting and prayer for peace in Syria, the Middle East, and throughout the world, and I also invite each person, including our fellow Christians, followers of other religions and all men of good will, to participate, in whatever way they can, in this initiative. -Pope Francis, Angelus Message for Sunday, September 1, 2013
Let’s pray for an end to violence against all human beings. Everywhere. At every stage of development. Let’s remember that peace begins in our own hearts; our willingness love, to forgive, to see the dignity of every human life — even the unlovable.
We have such a tendency to focus on everything that a disability takes away that we lose sight of all that is still possible. This is the 21st century, where there are incredible opportunities and advancements in medicine and technology that allow people with disabilities to live “normal”, productive and very active lives.
Consider the case of Andy Phelps. At the age of 15, Andy was in a car accident that killed two of his friends and left him without the use of his hands or legs. Today Andy is a video editor, using his mouth instead of his hands to manipulate digital images.
Jordan Ballor writes:
There’s a dangerous tendency in America today to view disabilities of various kinds as insuperable barriers to productive and loving service. There is often an implicit, and sometimes explicit, disrespect of a basic feature of human dignity in the treatment of those with disabilities as merely passive recipients of government aid, the objects of public pity. The reality is that each one of us, created in the image of God, has the capacity to be a productive steward of some kind, and this reality has the potential to reshape our personal perspectives as well as our public policy.
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As Rudy Carrasco of Partners Worldwide puts it, “Every single person on the face of the planet is created in God’s image. Everybody has the same heavenly Father. Everybody has capacity, talent, and ability. Everybody has responsibility. Everybody has stewardship responsibility . . . You have a responsibility to be a steward of the resources under your control because you have a heavenly Father who has put great things inside of you and that’s waiting to be called out and developed and extracted.”Andy’s example, and others like it, should transform our thinking about disability and stewardship responsibility. It should also transform our public policy. America is facing a long-term disability challenge of monumental proportions. Recent Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) figures show that a record number of people are on disability today. As Cornell University’s Richard Burkhauser writes, “This recession-induced growth exacerbates the long time trend in SSDI program growth that has resulted in its real expenditures increasing sevenfold, from $18 billion (2010 dollars) in 1970 to $128 billion in 2010, a trend the CBO reports will result in program insolvency as early as 2016.”
The vast majority of people who go on long-term disability never leave the rolls. In many cases, this makes sense. But in other cases, the incentives of disability insurance and the assumptions implicit in our policy and our treatment of those on disability reinforces the lie that those who are disabled have nothing positive to offer. We should encourage those who are disabled, both personally and in our policy, to find ways to serve others, whether in the form of waged work or not. In some cases, this means that people will one day be able to do without public assistance. For others, this will mean serving in other ways while continuing to receive private and public aid.
A friend of mine from college has written a beautiful reflection on marriage based on what she has observed since she herself got married 82 days ago. It’s not what you would expect to hear from a young newlywed.
The whole thing is worth reading, but I especially like when she addresses an article written several months ago on the merits of marrying young, which generated a good bit of discussion in the Catholic blogosphere and beyond:
The whole debate surrounding when to get married and why to get married (or not) seems to focus on broad-spectrum factors like education and life experience and how much you’ve traveled – and people come down on both sides of all those questions, but nobody ever seems to stop and ask: What about love?
So maybe I will do it: What about love? Not Hollywood love, not Taylor Swift song love, but real love, the kind that sees the good in the other person and lifts her up when she falls down and unloads the dishwasher and takes out the trash? Forget about age, or education, or income, or any other kind of externally observable characteristic that fits into a survey question. What if we talked to young women and girls and we said to them: Get married when you find a man you admire, a man who makes you laugh, a man who respects you and sees in you the goodness and beauty you sometimes doubt is there. Get married when you find that man, no sooner and no later.
Thank you, Miriel. In all the discussion I’ve read about when is the best time to get married, one word that has curiously been missing is love.
There is a perception that those of us who are still single after having reached our third decade on earth are so because we have made a conscious decision to forego marriage in order to selfishly pursue other personal interests (education, career, etc…). The reality for most of us, however, is simply that we have not yet found he (or she) whom our heart loves.
In October, Human Life International, Nebraska Bishops’ Pro-Life Office and the Archdiocese of Omaha Respect Life Apostolate are hosting a conference in Omaha, Nebraska, on the theme of : Life, Dignity, and Disability: A Faith that Welcomes.
Author Joseph Pearce will be one of the speakers. He writes at HLI’s Truth and Charity Forum:
One has to accept sorrow for it to be of any healing power, and that is the most difficult thing in the world … A priest once said to me, ‘When you understand what accepted sorrow means, you will understand everything. It is the secret of life’ (Maurice Baring).[1]
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Catholicism is a faith that welcomes life and is welcoming to the disabled because it is a faith that welcomes suffering. It is the Christian’s acceptance and embrace of suffering that is at the heart of his acceptance and embrace of the suffering of others.This is the “secret of life” disclosed by the fictional priest in Maurice Baring’s last novel, from which the above quote is taken. The acceptance of sorrow or suffering is indeed the secret of life. When we understand that we will understand everything, or, if not everything, we will at least understand the hollowness of the lies and delusions with which the world tries to seduce us.
Read the rest of his lovely essay.
For the past couple of months I keep coming back to this beautiful post from Steve Gershom (aka Joseph Pervor)
‘Patience means not only being willing to wait for the end of something, but staying alongside it the whole time: not just waiting for the fruit of the tree, but watching as it grows, loving the dirt and the sap and the rain, rejoicing in the bud and the blossom as well as the apple; not only because they are necessary precursors, but because they too are ends, are good.’
I have many virtues, but patience, simply is not one of them — especially when it comes to my relationships.
“Love is patient…It is not jealous…it does not seek its own interests.” I’m slowly learning how to truly love — or trying to. To see my love, my friendship, as a gift, to be given freely, with nothing required or to be expected in return.
It’s not easy, to say the very least, and it can be very painful — a real lesson in pride — especially when it can seem like some people mean much more to you than you mean to them.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like your heart!
Fatherhood has treated Wills well in many ways — he looks great!
Related:
Cute Royal Baby Blogging
Having Children Has Made Jim Gaffigan a “Better Man”
My baby sister is having a baby! It seems like only yesterday…
Throwback Thursday: me and my baby-baby sister 24 years ago.
But, she really is pregnant — 15 weeks or so. Unaware of the sex, we’ve all just been referring to the little one as “Peanut”…until now. Usually the sex is not determinable until closer to week 20, but at her checkup yesterday the doctor decided to go ahead and do an ultrasound and, according to my sister, he was “showing off his junk” so they couldn’t help but see that little Peanut was a boy.
He still looks like a peanut to me — and that will probably end up being the kid’s nickname for the rest of his life.
Here he is trying to give the Vulcan salute.
Bless his little heartbeat:
Baby Cruz’ Heartbeat from Chelsea Zimmerman on Vimeo.
The proud parents:
And now, if you all would be so kind as to say a prayer for my sister and for pregnant women, unborn babies and fathers everywhere. I’ve been saying this pro-life prayer to St. Gerard.
I am pleased to learn that a story I shared here a few months ago has been nominated for a Regional Emmy. It’s from my old hometown, my sister’s high school alma mater, specifically, about a young man with Down syndrome who is carrying on the tradition of a school legend:
Giving The H from Tom Martin on Vimeo.
Congrats to Tom Martin from KOMU and thanks for spreading the good news.
It strikes me that there really is no shortage of stories like Elijah’s in the media. They are often widely popular and well-received by the general public, and yet, parents who receive a prenatal diagnosis positive for Down syndrome continue to be fed the myth that these children live lives of unspeakable suffering and are a drain on family life. Why the disconnect? I wonder. Do people just think that these kids are the exception to the rule?