href=”http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2008/01/a_jesuits_perspective_on_abort.html”
target=”_blank”>Here is a wonderful guest opinion
on the Washington Post/Newsweek site by Dr. William Blazek, a Jesuit
scholastic and physician.
…A further note on killing the other
person: As a practicing physician licensed to care for pregnant women,
I believe that abortions kill a living human being in the earliest
stages of development. The moral question at hand is not if we are
killing; it is whether the victims have any claims as persons or not.
While the U.S. legal balance is at present skewed towards the denial of
rights for the unborn, Catholics and many Evangelical Christians argue
that both the mother and the unborn have rights. On a spiritual level,
a woman seeking an abortion should recognize that exercising her
choice will kill a vulnerable and defenseless human being. There is
no doubt about this. There is also no doubt that an action can be legal
and at the same time be wrong.
Final point, we kill the Church when, in ignorance, we hold it up to
ridicule. Last Spring, I asked several medical students in a seminar
whether they rejected Catholic teachings regarding reproduction and
artificial contraception. Several raised their hands. I prompted them
to articulate the position and to give their critique of it.
Conversation languished for some while. None in that group of
graduating physicians had an answer, yet these well-educated role
models were willing to publicly disagree with an argument they could
not explain. At a recent Christmas party, a gentlemen identifying
himself as a Catholic biologist was railing for research that would
result in the death of frozen human embryos. He justified the
exploitation, because they are just sitting there. I advised him that
the Churchs reverence for the protected status of a human person is
not based on level of activity but on an intrinsic dignity. He agreed
to consider that.
6 comments
That is an excellent article. Do read the whole thing.
Wow. Way to go… Great article!
Just a question I had never though to ask until today: What does the Church say should be done with the frozen embryos leftover from IVF? If they can’t be implanted and we know they can’t be exploited, what is to become of them? Take them out of the freezer and bury them? It doesn’t seem like there’s a right and not awful way to deal with those human embryos…
I don’t think there is a morally acceptable way to rescue the frozen embryos “left over” from IVF. That’s just one of the many reasons that they should not be created in the first place. It’s heartbreaking that the poor little ones are made in a dish, in violation of moral principles, and then some people want to kill them because they are “extra” and “unwanted” from the point of view of their parents but so very “useful” to unethical scientists. How many other wrongs can be done to them?
Great piece. Thanks for posting.
Wonder how they left him in? The site is mainly liberal theologians spouting PC politics…although once in awhile they let Father Reese pretend to give the catholic viewpoint, and once in awhile they let Cal Thomas lose.
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