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by E. Christian Brugger, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Ethics
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 Two weeks ago President Obama sent a memo to the members of the
President’s Council on Bioethics (PCB) [1] informing them that their
appointments were being prematurely terminated. Impatient to nominate
his own slate, Obama decided the September 2009 expiry date of their
present term was too long to wait.
An advisory commission such as the PCB serves at the pleasure of the
sitting president. Since the members whom he served notice were all
Bush appointees, Obama’s move was unsurprising. It is however a
further indication of the direction the new administration is taking
public moral discourse.
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by Helen Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law
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 It is well-known by now that the effort to overturn California’s
Proposition 8 lost at the California Supreme Court. Proposition 8 is
the citizens’ initiative which overturned that same court’s prior
decision ‘finding” a right to same-sex “marriage” within the California
Constitution. Gay rights’ reaction to the latest court ruling has
included calls for another citizen vote on the subject in 2010.
Leading same-sex marriage proponents have not tended to support the
alternative strategy of bringing their cause before a U.S. federal
court. The U.S. Constitution gives the federal courts jurisdiction to
hear claims that state action violates federal constitutional
guarantees. In the case of same-sex marriage, plaintiffs would argue
before a federal court that state laws reserving marriage for
opposite-sex couples violates both the Due Process and Equal Protection
clauses of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
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by William E. May, Ph.D., Senior Fellow
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 The term “bioethics” is of recent coinage. The first to use it was Van
Rensselaer of the University of Wisconsin in the late 1960’s, an
oncologist who used it in an evolutionary sense somewhat distant from
the sense it has acquired. Warren T. Reich, one of the original
professors at what was then called the “The Joseph and Rose Kennedy
Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction and Bioethics” at
Georgetown University and editor of the first edition of the 4 volume
Encyclopedia of Bioethics, credits André Hellegers, the Dutch
obstetrician/fetal physiologist/demographer who founded the Kennedy
Institute at Georgetown University as the one “who used the term to
apply to the ethics of medicine and the biological sciences in such a
way that the name caught on in academic circles and in the mind of the
public. He did this initially by seeing to it that the word bioethics
appeared in the original name of the Kennedy Institute at its founding
in 1971: The Joseph and Rose Kennedy Institute for the Study of Human
Reproduction and Bioethics” (see Reich’s essay, “How Bioethics Got Its
Name” in The Hastings Center Report, Vol. 23, 1993).
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by E. Christian Brugger, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Ethics
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Earlier this year, seven directors of bioethics programs at Jesuit
universities, calling themselves the Consortium of Jesuit Bioethics
Programs, published in Commonweal a critique of papal teaching on the
moral requirement to provide food and water to patients in the
so-called persistent vegetative state (PVS). [1] Their aim is to
influence the American bishops against amending the Ethical and
Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs) to bring
the directives in line with the March 2004 teach¬ing of Pope John Paul
II on PVS. [2] The amendment will be considered at the bishops’ June
2009 meeting.
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by Helen Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law
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The recent news of the nearly 40% out of wedlock birth rate in the
United States should pretty much rock our world as citizens and as
Catholics. According to the Centers for Disease Control report, this
means 1.7 million children were born to unmarried mothers in 2007, a
figure 250% greater than the number reported in 1980. The implications
for our society loom large. According to empirical data published over
the last several decades in leading sociological journals, these
children, on average, will suffer significant educational and emotional
disadvantages compared to children reared by their married parents.
They will be less able to shoulder the burdens that “next generations”
traditionally assume for the benefit of their families, communities and
their country. They are likely to repeat their parents’ behaviors. The
boys are more likely to engage in criminal behavior and the girls to
have nonmarital children. There is also the fact that American society
is becoming increasingly segregated by different marriage and family
patterns. (See Kay Hymowitz, Marriage and Caste in America, 2007). To
wit, according to the CDC report, out of wedlock birth rates for
Hispanic and African American women are more than three and two times,
respectively, the rates for non-Hispanic white women. Furthermore,
only a tiny fraction of the children of college educated women are born
outside of marriage, while very high percentages are born to women with
a high school education or less.
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by E. Christian Brugger, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Ethics
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Even those minimally familiar with the stem cell debate are aware of
the vast disparity that presently exists between the clinical
usefulness of human adult stem cells (hASCs) and embryonic stem cells
(hESCs). Not only have hESCs, despite billions of dollars spent, not
given rise to a single clinical success (none, zero); but until
recently, there had not even been a single clinical trial using hESCs
accepted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This illustrates
the concern of that regulatory body and the wider field for the serious
problems associated with hESC therapies, the most serious of which is
tumor formation.
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by Jessica Sage, Staff Counsel, Americans United for Life
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 This year marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of the National
Abortion Rights and Reproductive Rights Action League (“NARAL”) and its
headlining of a reproductive “right” to “choice.” Since its inception,
the efforts of recently-recast NARAL Pro-Choice America have resulted
in more than 46 million legal abortions in the United States—a number
that should shock the public, but is all too often drowned out by
NARAL’s noisy rhetoric of reproductive “choice.” For Americans that
value and seek to protect human life, the question is: Is life in
America better today as a result of NARAL?
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by Helen Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law
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 One of the most respected American sociologists, Andrew Cherlin, has
recently published The Marriage-Go-Round: the State of Marriage and the
Family in America. True to his role at Johns Hopkins University, he
proposes in his new work, not only a sociologically based
characterization of the American family, but also a public policy
response. The book is as important and revealing as it is overwhelming
and discouraging to supporters of children’s welfare and the overall
strength of marriage and families.
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by E. Christian Brugger, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Ethics
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Cypriot born reproductive scientist Panos Zavos is up to his old
mischief, claiming this time to have cloned 14 human embryos and to
have transferred 11 of them into the wombs of four women happy to give
birth to cloned babies. This is his third public announcement in six
years claiming to have succeeded at the controversial procedure [1].
Zavos, a naturalized American citizen, has fertility clinics in
Kentucky and in Cyprus. The British Independent reports that his
present work took place at a secret laboratory in a country where
cloning is legal (it speculates somewhere in the Middle East) [2].
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by William E. May, Ph.D., Senior Fellow
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 When God made man, he did not make a conscious subject aware of
itself as a self to which he then added a body as an afterthought.
Rather, when he made man, "male and female he created them," and he
blessed them, saying: "Be fertile and multiply" (Gen 1:27-28).
In other words, when God created man he created a bodily being,
made in his own image and likeness and thus endowed with the gifts of
intelligence and free choice, sexually differentiated into male and
female. And he loves specific, individual human persons, male and
female, and not humanity in general. He made them to be the kind of
beings they are (human in nature), namely, bodily persons sexually
differentiated into male and female, precisely so that they could
freely receive from him the gift of his own divine life (grace) so long
as they freely choose, with his help, to give themselves away in
love--in a sincere gift of self--and thus form a communion of persons,
ultimately the communion of saints living fully the life of the Triune
God.
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by E. Christian Brugger, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Ethics
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 PRO-CHOICE NOT TO PARTICIPATE IN ABORTIONS
Take Action
Most are aware that the Obama administration has taken aim at
conscience regulations passed in the waning days of the Bush
administration protecting health care workers from participating in
abortions and sterilizations. Some however might be confused as to the
precise nature of the new administration’s initiative. I want to
clarify the salient points of that initiative and invite everyone who
reads this brief to contact the White House and urge it to defend and
not weaken conscience laws in the U.S.
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by Helen Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law
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It must be said first that the Iowa Supreme Court decision (Varnum v.
O’Brien, No. 07-1499, April 3, 2009) which invented a state
constitutional right to same sex “marriage” is very hard to read. By
this I don’t mean to say that it is intellectually complex for any
reader possessing legal training. I mean that it is hard on a rational
reader’s desire for logic and hard on a fair reader’s sense of
justice. It is hard for those who know something about U.S.
constitutional law or family law because seven out of seven of Iowa’s
Supreme Court justices summarily jettisoned or ignored much of the
accumulated wisdom in both of those fields. It is particularly hard on
those who, like me, suspect that some government leaders -- in this
case judges -- care far too much for fickle public opinion and far too
little for children. All of our suspicions are confirmed. It is hard
because the Iowa judges openly shake their collective finger at people
who won’t support same sex “marriage,” characterizing such people as
bigots and as obstacles to progress. Finally, it is hard to read the
Iowa Supreme Court’s swipe at some religions (you can guess which
ones), and its suggestion that people of faith who are on the wrong
side of this question, should remember their “place.”
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by Kellie M. Fiedorek, 2009 Legal Extern, Americans United for Life
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 The President of the United States is in a unique position to
profoundly influence the nation’s debates over key social and political
issues for decades after he leaves office. He can do this because he
maintains the authority to appoint judges to the nation’s federal
courts including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Although these nominees – including those for federal district courts
and for highly-influential federal circuit courts -- must be approved
by the Senate, the President bears the responsibility to nominate men
and women he believes are qualified for these important positions. More
often than not, he also seeks to nominate individuals that share his
political and social views as well as his judicial philosophy.
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by Helen Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law
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Culture of Life Senior Fellow in Law, Helen M. Alvaré, in Zenit on "How Honoring the President Could Weaken the Catholic Voice"
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by E. Christian Brugger, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Ethics
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Because of heightened interest in my last piece, Stem Cells for
Dummies, I decided to pursue further questions pertaining to scientific
interest in embryonic stem cells (ESCs).
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by Helen Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law
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I have noticed a critical mass of scholars and policymakers suggesting
lately that if mothers of minority- aged children (under 18) really
felt free to choose their work/home “balance,” they would choose to
work outside the home for more hours than they are presently working.
Consequently, this argument continues, the government might have to
step in to give them what they really want by means of some combination
of laws and policies pushing and pulling them out of the kitchen and
into the office, factory, etc.
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by William E. May, Ph.D., Senior Fellow
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 Introduction
Long ago St. Augustine distinguished three cardinal goods of marriage:
the good of offspring (bonum prolis) who are to be begotten lovingly,
nurtured humanely, and educated religiously; the good of steadfast
fidelity (bonum fidei) between husband and wife; and the good of the
sacrament (bonum sacramenti), which entails both the holy bond of
indissoluble unity (sacrum vinculum) and sacramental sign (sacramentum
signum), the good of the sacrament in the strict sense as the good
pointing to and inwardly participating in Christ’s bridal union with
his spouse, the Church (St. Augustine developed his teaching on the
threefold good of marriage principally in On the Good of Marriage (De
bono coniugali),On Marriage and Concupiscence ( De nuptiis et
concupiscentia),and The Literal Meaning of Genesis ( De genesi ad
litteram). Subsequent Catholic tradition made these goods its own,
constantly affirming them; in fact, Pope Pius XI structured his 1930
encyclical On Chaste Marriage (Casti connubii) around these three
Augustinian goods..
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by E. Christian Brugger, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Ethics
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What is a Stem Cell?
A stem cell is an undifferentiated cell (i.e., a cell that has not
yet specialized into a particular cell type, e.g., liver cell,
pancreatic cell, or cardiac cell) with two unique capacities: the
first, for rapid and prolonged self-multiplication into daughter cells
identical with itself; and the second, for development and
differentiation into specific types of cells such as liver and cardiac
cells.
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by Rebecca Mastee, Legal Extern, Americans United for Life
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Consider Elizabeth, a twelve year old girl living in Pennsylvania, a
state which has enacted a number of common-sense and protective
regulations on abortion. With parental consent and other requirements
within her state, one would believe that Elizabeth is protected from
the dangers inherent in abortion. However, if the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child is ratified, under international
law, these protections would be imperiled. Elizabeth’s parents would
no longer be able to protect her. They would not be permitted to
inculcate her with their moral and religious beliefs regarding
sexuality; instead, she would be encouraged to make her own “choice”
after being exposed to mass media, popular culture, and instructional
programs allegedly designed to promote her social and moral
well-being. If she were to consider an abortion, her parents would not
be entitled to receive any information about it because to do so would
violate her “right to privacy.” Moreover, unfettered and direct access
to contraception -- without the “inconvenience” of involving her
parents -- would also be her “right.”
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by William E. May, Ph.D., Senior Fellow
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In a previous essay I presented and criticized the consequentialist
understanding of human acts central to the culture of death. Here I
will set forth the true understanding of human acts central to the
culture of life. This understanding, fully compatible with Christian
faith, is also philosophically sound; it is the meaning of human acts
undergirding “natural law.”
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by Helen Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law
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The Obama administration has decided to roll back a rule issued by the
Department of Health and Human Services during the Bush administration
that provided enforceable conscience protection for health care
providers and institutions who do not wish to become involved with
abortion. Shortly before he left the White House, President Bush
facilitated the issuing of these regulations by his Department of
Health and Human Services (“HHS”). They became effective during January
2009. The first draft of these regulations were issued by HHS for
public comment in August of 2008, and elicited a reflection from
Culture of Life Fellow Dr. Christian Brugger. He wrote at that time
that abortion activists focused their public opposition to these
regulations upon the possibility that they could empower health care
providers to refuse to dispense “emergency contraception” (EC) given
some evidence that EC might act as an abortifacient in some instances.
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by William E. May, Ph.D., Senior Fellow
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I will examine and criticize the position of Lisa Sowle Cahill, a
married woman and mother who is professor of moral theology at Boston
College and highly regarded by her peers, on the issue of human
sexuality by focusing on her views regarding the significance of
“single sexual acts,” contraception, and in vitro fertilization.
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by William E. May, Ph.D., Senior Fellow
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Feminism comes in different varieties. Some forms are compatible with
Catholic/Christian teaching on human sexuality; others are not. In a
two-part essay I will consider the heterodox feminist understanding of
human sexuality and of norms governing sexual activity proposed by some
Catholic theologians that is quite different from and opposed to the
understanding of human sexuality and its norms held firmly by the
Catholic Church.
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Save the Date:
Culture of Life Foundation's 2nd Annual
William E. May
Award for Promoting Ethics and the Human Person
September, 2009
Washington, DC
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