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Something evil happened recently in Austin. Michael Hickson, a forty-six-year-old African-American man with quadriplegia and a serious brain injury, was refused treatment at St. David's Hospital South Austin while ill [...]

In a column I recently re-read, the Rev. Charles Chaput, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, pondered, as he often does, the 'meaning and dignity of the human person.' [...]

An analysis of the various arguments surrounding the issues of abortion, euthanasia and the death penalty. Particular attention is paid to how it is possible to be for one or another of these issues but still oppose the others.

In my essay, Why abortion is immoral, I criticised discussions of the morality of abortion in which the crucial issue is whether fetuses are human beings or whether fetuses are persons. Both argument strategies are inadequate because they rely on indefensible assumptions. Why should being a human being or being a person make a moral difference? I argued that the correct account of the morality of abortion should be based upon a defensible account of why killing children and adults is wrong. I claimed that what makes killing us wrong is that our premature deaths deprive us of our futures of value, that is, the goods of life we would have experienced had we survived. This account of the wrongness of killing explains why killing is one of the worst of crimes and how killing greatly harms the victim. It coheres with the attitudes of those with cancer or HIV facing premature death. It explains why we believe it is wrong to kill infants (as personhood theories do not). It does not entail that it wrongs a human being to end her life if she is in persistent vegetative state or if her future must consist only of unbearable physical suffering and she wants to die (as sanctity of human life theories do not). This account of the wrongness of killing implies (with some defensible additional assumptions) that abortion is immoral because we were fetuses once and we know those fetuses had futures of value. Mark Brown claims that this potential future of value account is unsound because it implies that we have welfare rights to what we need to stay alive that most people would reject. I argue that Brown is incorrect in two ways: a welfare right to what we need to stay alive is not directly implied by my account and, in addition, most of us do believe that dependent human beings have substantial welfare rights to what they need to stay alive. Brown argues that depriving us of a future of value of which we have mental representations both is a better explanation of the wrongness of killing and does not imply that abortion is immoral. I reply that (a) if Brown's arguments against my view were sound, those arguments could be easily adapted to show that his view is unsound as well and (b) Brown's view is both ambiguous and unsound on any interpretation. The most popular class of pro-choice argument strategies appeals to the view that some or all fetuses lack either a mental state or function or a capacity for a mental state or function necessary for possession of the right to life. Desires, interests, sentience, various concepts, moral agency, and rationality have all been suggested as candidates for this crucial mental role. Brown's analysis is one member of this class of strategies. I believe that it is possible to show that none of these strategies is reasonable. However, there are so many of these strategies that the required argument demands something more like a book and less like a short essay. The argument of the following essay is a piece of this larger argument. Keywords: Abortion; future of value; Mark Brown; Don Marquis; the right to life; welfare rights, In my essay, Why abortion is immoral, I claimed that an argument we can call 'a future of value argument' shows that typical fetuses have the right to life. (1) [...]

Monsignor Charles Pope's blogs are full of Christ's wisdom about the most pressing subjects in modern life and his latest 'Accepting Disability in a World Obsessed with Perfection' is no [...]

Thousands of medical ethicists and bioethicists, as they are called, professionally guide the unthinkable on its passage through the debatable on its way to becoming the justifiable until it is [...]

Not only does the culture of death brook no dissent, but it seeks to force medical dissenters to kill. That is tyranny. Now that euthanasia is becoming more widely practiced, [...]

Some medical ethicists and health care cost utilitarians uphold the belief that it is unethical for a hopelessly ill person to demand for any medical intervention just to gain extra few weeks of life. Such a belief is anchored in the futile care theory which aims to protect the integrity and control the costs of medical care professionals, as well as, to prevent unnecessary suffering of a dying person. The futile care theory has posed dissenting issues about the rights of terminally sick individuals against medical ethics.

Many pro-choice advocates consider the fetus an object which may be discarded, and question the benefits of motherhood. Motherhood is a major and affirmative happening in a woman's life, and unborn infants have the right to be defended. The abortion debate in the US should center on whether or not the origins of children are real because abortion advocates eliminate these origins.

Pro-choice advocates have defended abortion by insisting that the constitutional right to possess private property extends to personal privacy and ownership of one's body. A fetus is considered a human life, and to use a constitutional right to justify the taking of a life is an absurdity. Some abortion advocates have begun to seek an ethical system which will justify unlimited abortion, and may be able to succeed.

The Institute of Medical Ethics holds that physicians are ultimately responsible for deciding whether to prolong or end the life of infants who, if they recover, will be disabled for life. However, the doctor is enjoined to share the decision-making burden with the caregivers, namely, parents and nurses. This is because recent court cases have given physicians and parents discretion in deciding whether the quality of life warrants prolonging the life of an infant. As a protective measure, such decisions should be recorded.

Abortion has been the topic of debates focusing on its spiritual, cultural and moral aspects. The changing views on abortion is attributed to the society's return to a utilitarian view of life, where life is judged by its usefulness to the community and the growing indifference of people to the issues on human life. This attitude has led people to have stronger reasons for taking away human life regardless of its moral implications.

In several US states, the legalisation of euthanasia has become a question for voters to decide in public referenda. This democratic approach in politics is consistent with notions of personal autonomy in medicine, but the right of choice does not mean all choices are morally equal. A presumption against the taking of human life is embedded in the formative moral traditions of society; human life does not have absolute value, but we do and should impose a strict burden of justification for exceptions to the presumption, as exemplified by the moral criteria invoked to justify self-defence, capital punishment, or just war. These criteria can illuminate whether another exception should be carved out for doctor-assisted suicide or active euthanasia. It does not seem, in the United States at any rate, that all possible alternatives to affirm the control and dignity of the dying patient and to relieve pain and suffering, short of taking life, have been exhausted. Moreover, the procedural safeguards built into many proposals for legalised euthanasia would likely be undone by the sorry state of the US health care system, with its lack of universal access to care, chronic cost-containment ills, a litigious climate, and socioeconomic barriers to care. There remains, however, common ground in the quest for humane care of the dying.

From the time abortion was legalized in the early 1970s in the US, providers of abortion services have been targets of protest and intimidation. In the past few years, these providers have increasingly been subjected to violence by antiabortion supporters. This study sought to characterize the growing violence faced by providers of abortion services. Data on such violent acts occurring between January 1, 1977 and December 31, 1988 was analyzed. There were 110 cases of violent acts, such as arson or bombing, during this period, with the largest number (29) occurring in 1984. The violent acts were directed against health care providers in 108 of the 110 cases. No hospitals were attacked. Of the 80 health facilities attacked, 16 were attacked more than once, with one facility being attacked five times. The largest number of attacks occurred in Ohio, with 16 attacks, followed by California with 10 attacks and Texas with nine. By population, the highest number of attacks occurred in the District of Columbia, followed by Vermont, Oregon, and Minnesota. There was no relation between proportion of abortion providers attacked and abortion rates during the period. Many of the attacks occurred in clusters. Arson was the most frequent type of violent act, followed by bombing. Fires and firebombings caused the most extensive monetary damages. The number of attacks appeared to drop after 1984 as perpetrators have for the most part been vigorously prosecuted. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

The notion of 'quality of life' frequently features in discussions about how it is appropriate to treat folk at the beginning and at the end of life. It is argued that there is a disjunction between its use in these two areas (1). In the case of disabled babies at the very beginning of life, 'quality of life' considerations are frequently used to justify enforced death on the basis that the babies in question would be better off dead. At times, babies with severe disabilities are thus allowed to die or even killed. In the case of terminally ill people 'quality of life' is also important in guiding the actions of doctors. However, in the case of individuals who do not wish to live any longer because their quality of life is so poor that they would rather be dead, quality of life is likely to be dropped as a guiding principle. Thus patients who wish to die and ask to be killed, will most often be forced to endure enforced life.

The practice of abortion among women seem to be anchored on the belief which stresses that women have the right to choose whether an unborn child in their womb would be eliminated or not. This belief has led some women to believe that an unwanted pregnancy, which has transpired due to a sexual affair, can be terminated as long as they give their consent on the matter. Such a belief about the right to choose remain ethically and morally baseless because it undermines the right of unborn child to live.

In the U.K., issues involving euthanasia and the active ending of life have become increasingly important, with several court cases involving severely handicapped babies continuing the debate. The British Medical Association has confirmed its position on euthanasia and says that doctors must not end the lives of their patients. In the Netherlands, around 200 severely disabled newborn babies are allowed to die each year and the Dutch Paediatric Association has sanctioned the use of medication to terminate life in severe cases.

When 'bioethicist' Peter Singer moved to the United States, our loss was the rest of the world's gain. In the time Singer has been the DeCamp Professor in the University [...]

Discussions following release of the Terri Schiavo autopsy report have been thoughtful, caring and deep, from people on all sides of the issue. That she was irreversibly brain dead and [...]

The laws of all but 10 states may allow doctors and hospitals to disregard advance directives when they call for treatment, food, or fluids, according to an important report issued [...]

On a Tuesday in late October 2003, I went to work just like I do every day. Only this day would not be like any other day. This day would [...]

For three and one-half years, from April 2001 until September 2004, I represented Bob and Mary Schindler in their attempt to save the life of Terri Schiavo, their eldest child. [...]

'The handicapped have complained for years that they are not treated as whole people and that they don't receive the benefit of the law. The Schiavo case is exhibit A [...]

God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. --Genesis 1:27 And one of them E tested him by asking, [...]

Not long ago I was reading an e-mail (which I do a lot) when a sentence reminded me of something I hadn't given sufficient thought to for a long time. [...]

The diagnosis that an unborn child has a life-threatening disease or anomaly is a particularly heavy cross for a family to bear. The hopes and dreams that accompany a pregnancy [...]

'You can't handle the truth!' This famous line from an award-winning movie also describes the American mindset when it comes to the issues of abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and, [...]

'The children I aborted will never appear in our family photos or at family gatherings. They will never be there for my son to love, know, play with, call when [...]

Vatican City (October 16) - - Around the world, pro-life leaders heralded the 23rd anniversary of Pope John Paul II's election to head the Catholic Church. His dynamic and steadfast [...]

Since 1972, the annual Respect Life Program has served as the primary component of the U.S. Catholic bishops' efforts to educate Catholics and others on a broad range of pro-life [...]

Thanks to his mother's choice not to undergo an abortion, "strongman" Bud Jeffries is alive and well, grateful for the chance to bring the power of God to America's youth. […]

Knowing that everything Robert Latimer said about the child he murdered was false, the Supreme Court sent him to jail. Editor's note. This first appeared in Report Magazine, which can [...]