Ahhh. Obamacare. The gift that keeps on giving. Now we see states increasing the income caps on the people eligible to receive medicaid services, particularly, those involving reproductive health. With sob stories like this one, who could resist such a sanguine policy maneuver:

Ariel Wilberg, a 20-year-old student in Edgerton, Wis., says she enrolled in the program two years ago to cover the cost of her birth-control pills. With a part-time bookstore job that pays $10 an hour, she couldn’t afford to pay for the NuvaRing prescription birth control she now takes. She estimates it would cost her about $300 for the three-month supply she gets at a Planned Parenthood outlet.

“It’s very nice to know that I’m healthy in terms of I don’t have to worry about pregnancy,” she said.

The conclusion is clear: the day she gets pregnant, she’ll have a disease. That’s the warped world the culture of death has wrought.

Yours truly will be one of the speakers.

Last November I participated in a panel at a conference at the University of Notre Dame on the issue of President Obama’s May 2009 commencement address. Other participants on the panel included Radford University’s Matthew Franck and Gwen Brown, moderated by my Baylor colleague, Donald Schmeltekopf.

A version of the paper I delivered on that panel has just been published in Touchstone: A Magazine of Mere Christianity (May/June 2010).   Entitled, “Justice for Some: Moral Theology & the President’s Honorary Doctorate,” here is an excerpt:
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That is the title of an article I just published in the Summer 2010 issue of Ethics & Medicine: An International Journal of Bioethics (vol. 26.2).  (The title, if you have not noticed yet, is from a line in the Bob Dylan song, “Dignity”). Here’s how the article begins (endnotes omitted):

In March 2008, the President’s Council on Bioethics published a volume entitled, Human Dignity and Bioethics.  It consists of essays penned by council members as well as other scholars and practitioners invited to contribute. As one would guess, the idea of human dignity and what it means for bioethics, both in theory and in practice, is the theme that dominates each of the works contributed to this impressive volume. But for those who have been following or participating in the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary world of secular bioethics during the past fifteen or twenty years, the insertion of the idea of “human dignity,” or even the word “dignity,” as the anthropological foundation of bioethics is highly unusual.  Much of the cutting edge literature in bioethics, with few exceptions, tends to employ the language of modern political theory and contemporary analytic political philosophy and jurisprudence. So, for example, one finds in these cutting-edge works discussions about the meaning and implementation of the principles of autonomy, justice, nonmaleficence, and beneficence, as well as calls for the application of these principles to what constitutes physician neutrality, informed consent, and patients’ rights.  This project often goes by the name principlism. There is, of course, much that this project has contributed to the study and practice of bioethics.  For each principle and its application has a long and noble pedigree about which many of us hold a variety of opinions. But what distinguishes principlism from the concept of “human dignity,” and what makes this central concern of the council’s volume so astounding, is that advocates of principlism typically intend for it to be a means by which a physician, ethics committee, nurse practitioner, general counsel, etc., need not delve into the metaphysical question for which “human dignity” is offered as a partial answer, namely, “Who and what are we, and can we know it?”

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That’s the title of the essay I just published in the Spring 2010 issue of The City, a publication of Houston Baptist University. Here’s how it begins:

One of the many bad habits of the modern mind is its proclivity to answer moral questions with social science answers. So, for example, it is not unusual to hear a political activist assess a policy’s success or failure at confronting the moral problem of out of wedlock teenage fornication by examining whether there are fewer bastards sired and borne by teenyboppers this year compared to last year (or the year before). If the numbers go up, the activist will likely argue that the schools should start distributing prophylactics as well as abortion gift certificates redeemable at your local Planned Parenthood. But just as you don’t erradicate illiteracy by burning all the books, you don’t solve a moral problem by redefining it as exclusively one of unpleasant consequences. After all, a promiscuous teenage girl, who while copulating with the entire high school football team remains prophlyicatically conscientious, does not cease to have a soul that is being formed by her judgments and experiences simply because her body has not exhibited the ordinary physical consequences of recreational sex.

As far as I know, Trojan, with its well-funded and creative research and development team, has yet to develop a metaphysically reliable condom that can protect the soul.

You can read the whole thing here.

(Originally posted on Return To Rome blog)

Dante is never outdated, as we see in this story from Drudge.  Turns out the Dignitas suicide clinic has been disposing of remains in a rather undignified manner:  dumping the urns into a heap at the bottom of Lake Zurich.  I’m sure the ‘suicide tourists’ expected something a bit more clinical, more Swiss, for their considerable Euros.

They have learned the lesson of the souls in Canto XIII of The Inferno:  As you measure to the body in life, so it will be measured to you in death.  Pier delle Vigne, the soul entrapped in a blackened, twisted thornbush, protests after his branch is broken by the pilgrim Dante:  “Why do you break me?  Your hand had shown us greater mercy had we been the souls of serpents.”  Indeed, but the terrible irony is that Pier showed no mercy to himself in life, treating his own flesh as something to be disposed of at will.  In consequence, his body will be returned to him only to hang on his tree, in a grotesque parody of the crucifixion.

The same blindness is reflected in the outraged protests of Europeans over the dumping.  They are outraged that bodies were disposed of improperly, not that human beings disposed of themselves improperly in the soothing, sanitary confines of the Dignitas clinic.  Both the customers and the clinic treated their bodies in precisely the same way:  as so much inconvenient tissue.  Certainly they were suffering, but to be human is to suffer.  Our hope is to love well in the midst of that suffering, brutally hard as that might be.

Zurich, in the heartland of the Reformation, has lost the language to condemn such acts.  Zwingli would find himself bewildered.  When self-murder is spoken of in terms of human dignity, we no longer know the meaning of the human or what its proper dignity might be.  We protest over the corpse, but do not speak for the man.

Well this manages to pretty neatly encapsulate everything that is wrong with our culture.

“I’m doing this to de-mystify abortion,” she says. “I’m doing this so other women know, ‘Hey, it’s not nearly as terrifying as I had myself worked up thinking it was.’ It’s just not that bad.”

These are the words of Angie Jackson, a blogger and mother of a 4-year-old son. Her IUD birth control failed; she is four weeks pregnant and writing about her abortion on YouTube, her personal blog, and on Twitter under the hashtag #livetweetingabortion.

Last Thursday, Jackson visited a Planned Parenthood where her doctor gave her the first dose of RU-486, the abortion pill. (Note: The abortion pill is not the same as the morning-after pill.) She had to take four more pills — swallowing two and letting two others dissolve in her mouth—on Friday and Saturday.

She hasn’t taken to her various media platforms to show the graphic parts of her abortion. Instead, Jackson is chronicling how her abortion feels physically and emotionally — as she puts it on YouTube, “It’s just not that bad.” It’s almost like guerilla sex ed.

An optimistic part of me thinks that the woman’s callous disregard for human life and the way that she is acting in the public square will actually hurt her cause.  Instead of de-mystifying abortion, she offers an extreme example of self-absorption and selfishness.

Well, that’s what I tell myself to keep from weeping.

By the way, I find the comments of the person blogging about this to be hysterical.

I think it’s brave of her to share something that will make her a bulls-eye for anti-choice activists.

Oh yes, what a brave woman.  She will have to endure the slings and arrows of hundreds of furious blog comments (like this one) that she most likely will never read.  It certainly takes a brave individual to swallow a few pills in order to “do away with a problem” rather than take responsibility for one’s actions.  She’s a real warrior that one.

I’m a pretty big sports fan, but I had never heard of Sean James, until I saw this commercial only moments ago. Al Joyner, I’ve heard of, but only because of his talented late wife, Florence Griffith Joyner, and sister, Jackie Joyner-Kersey.

But here’s my take on this: if you have to tell people you’re a famous athlete, you’re probably not a famous athlete. I can’t imagine, for example, Michael Jordan saying, “Hello, I am Michael Jordan. I am a former professional and college basketball player, and a two-time Olympic gold medalist. I was also a member of six NBA championship teams in the 1990s.”

In October, while I was visiting Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, I taped an episode of the EWTN program, Franciscan University Presents. For those who missed the broadcast on Sunday evening, January 31, EWTN will be repeating the broadcast twice more this week: Tuesday, February 2 at 1:00 PM ET and 10 AM PT, and Friday, February 5 at 4:00 AM ET and 1 AM PT.

I discussed my 2007 book, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press), which, as of Monday evening, was the #1 ranked book in the category of “abortion and birth control” on Amazon.com.

(Originally posted on the Return to Rome blog)

Today is the March for Life, an event I hope to attend at least some of later in the day.  It is also the 37th anniversary of one of the most atrocious Supreme Court decisions ever handed down by our Overlords in black, and Red State has a terrific editorial today that is a definite must read on the topic.

It is heartening that we have made some small strides through the years.  Opposition to abortion has increased, and we’re seeing some signs that the youth of today are embracing the culture of life.  But we still have far to go, as evidenced by the actions of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Council.

The Montgomery County Council is considering a regulation that would require pro-life pregnancy resource centers to tell new clients that the information they provide is not intended to be medical advice and to turn to other providers before “proceeding on a course of action regarding [her] pregnancy.” The regulation would impose a fine of up to $750 per day for not doing so.

The bill singles out pregnancy resource centers only because of their pro-life mission. If approved, the Montgomery County regulation would impose government-compelled speech on a non-profit organization that does not receive public funding simply because the organization declines to provide or refer for abortion. The regulation does not apply to “family planning” clinics, which the County government funds, or to abortion clinics.

Maryland, which as a colony was a haven for Catholics, is now the state with the fourth highest abortion rate in the country, and had been one of the few states where the rate is increasing.

There is a critical need for offering alternatives to abortion. While the abortion rate declined 9 percent nationally between 2000 and 2005, the abortion rate in Maryland rose 8 percent in the same period. Our state’s abortion rate is now 38 percent higher than the national rate, with more than one-in-four Maryland pregnancies ending in abortion. There were 37,590 abortions performed here in 2005 – about 103 per day.  To even consider targeting centers that help women choose life is unconscionable in light of these tragic statistics, which represent an even more tragic reality.

Though there is growing opposition to this movement, the Montgomery City Council has not a single Republican member.  My wife has written to our Council member, but I fear our pleas will fall on deaf ears.  If you are in or around the Montgomery County area, please write your local representatives to fight this ideologically motivated attack on pregnancy resource centers.  There is more information on how to get involved here.

Yesterday I had the good fortune to attend the inauguration of Virginia’s 71st governor, Bob McDonnell.  All the guests were full of energy and enthusiasm as we watched him take the oath of office, along with his Lieutenant-Governor Bob Bolling and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.  It really felt like being at a concert of my favorite rockstar – the excitement goes beyond description. I couldn’t do it justice if I tried. There was a little something for everyone, from the flyover after the oath to the Redskins cheerleaders to the history in which Richmond is steeped.  The next four years should be good for Virginia and I pray for the Governor and his family.

Below is the full text of his Inaugural Address, courtesy of #bobmcdonnell: (more…)

The UK Daily Mail has an astounding story about a man trapped in a supposed vegetative state for twenty-three years until the advent of new technology and the intervention of neurologist Dr. Steven Laureys.  Student Rom Hubens was left paralyzed in an apparent coma after a car accident, but remained in the hellish state of perfect comprehension and total paralysis.  His consciousness, based on current standards, was pronounced ‘extinct.’

But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally.

Mr Houben describes the moment as ‘my second birth.’

Therapy has since allowed him to tap out messages on a computer screen.

Mr Houben said: ‘All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt.’

His case has only just been revealed in a scientific paper released by the man who ‘saved’ him, top neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys.

My mother, in an odd trick of fate, was one of Terri Schiavo’s hospice nurses.  We talked very carefully about her case, aware of the profound difference in our views.  She was certain that what was being done was the best, most compassionate thing.

What this story reminds us is to never, ever bet against life.

HT Steyn in The Corner

(HT: K-Lo at NRO)

From the KBXT.com website (Bryan / College Station, Texas):

Planned Parenthood has been a part of Abby Johnson’s life for the past eight years; that is until last month, when Abby resigned. Johnson said she realized she wanted to leave, after watching an ultrasound of an abortion procedure.

“I just thought I can’t do this anymore, and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that’s it,” said Jonhson.

She handed in her resignation October 6. Johnson worked as the Bryan Planned Parenthood Director for two years.
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Just a reminder that I will be speaking at the Value of Human Life Conference, sponsored by the Institute of Bioethics at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. It will be held on the Franciscan University campus on October 23-25, 2009. For more information, go here. The three other keynote speakers at the conference are John Keown (Georgetown University), Gerard Bradley (University of Notre Dame Law School), and Patrick Lee (Institute of Bioethics, Franciscan University). You can find the entire conference schedule here.

During my time in Steubenville, I will also be taping an episode of the EWTN television program, Franciscan University Presents. I will be discussing my book, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2007). When I find out the date of the broadcast, I will post it on this blog.

I know I would be if I spun this wildly.

[Deal] Hudson argues that the public option will end up extending federal funding for abortion. He says that the courts will step in even if Congress doesn’t mandate abortion coverage in any such plan. Mind you, the courts have not stepped in to over-rule the Hyde Amendment lo these many years. The federal health insurance coverage that members of Congress enjoy does not include abortion coverage. Federal Medicaid funds do not support abortion. So, why would the federal option, which would be modeled after the insurance that members of Congress get, necessarily end up mandating abortion coverage? Hudson does not say. (more…)

Doug Kmiec, a law professor, pro-life advocate, former Reagan Administration official, and evangelical-Catholic-whatever, took a lot of heat from us usual suspects for endorsing Barack Obama, perhaps the most pro-choice major candidate ever.

“A black man; a caring man; a talented man. A man different from conservative self and yet calling me to find the best of that self.”

Professor Kmiec has now been appointed by President Obama as America’s new ambassador to Malta.

A scene from A Man for All Seasons comes to mind, where Thomas More confronts his betrayer, Richard Rich:

There is one question I would like to ask the witness.

But for Wales?

Or Malta.

“We must deceive them so as not to hurt them, and in that way, we honor them.”

This logical gem was employed by Dwight Shrute in an episode of The Office (“Casino Night,” for fellow enthusiasts) to justify hiding the presence of one woman at a party from another and vice versa. Unfortunately, such logical travesties are not confined to sitcoms, but are all too frequently used to justify killing unborn children. (more…)

This is video of a brief talk I gave yesterday at a gathering of conservative Republicans.

My talk to the RALC

When does one become a human being? Let us turn to White House Office of Science and Technology Policy director, John P. Holdren, for a clue.

John P. Holdren is director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In 1973, he co-authored a book — “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions” — with Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich.

…

On page 235, while making an argument for legalized abortion, the authors use language that on its face says a child “will ultimately develop into a human being” — after it is born.

“To most biologists, an embryo (unborn child during the first two or three months of development) or a fetus is no more a complete human being than a blueprint is a building,” they wrote. “The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being. Where any of these essential elements is lacking, the resultant individual will be deficient in some respect.”

Did you go through the essential early socializing experiences, and were you given sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after your birth? If not, then you, though born, are not a human being.

Yet another compelling video from the folks at CatholicVote.org:

Whenever freedom is lost, wherever tyranny is found, there are three accompanying factors: religious oppression, economic depression, and a culture of death.

Orwell’s 1984 provides a vivid example of this principle. Religion in Oceania has been wholly abolished, the people live in government-induced squalor, and the state routinely comes between children and their parents, and is working on preventing marriage altogether.

But there are ample historical examples as well. (more…)

It’s about Trig. Always has been.

Southern Appeal readers in the greater Chicagoland area may be interested in an upcoming conference on Global Bioethics sponsored by the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. It will be held July 16-18, 2009 on the campus of Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois. Among the featured speakers are yours truly, O. Carter Snead (Notre Dame Law School), and David P. Gushee (Mercer University). You can find out more about the conference here.

(Originally posted on First Thoughts, a First Things blog)

On this feast day of St. Thomas More, patron saint of politicians, it seems appropriate to mention my latest enterprise.

Southern Appeal has always been a law blog, among other things. When I came on board as a contributor, it was in spite of my lack of experience with the law. I am now endeavoring to gain a greater involvement with the law — as a legislator.

I am a candidate for the Illinois legislature. I am seeking to unseat a Republican incumbent who has voted to repeal parental notifications for minors seeking abortions, voted to increase state funding of abortion, voted to abolish conscience protections for pro-life healthcare providers, voted for state funding of embryo-destructive stem cell research, who voted to remove the requirement that abortion providers be physicians, and who voted to protect abortion providers from malpractice suits. Her largest contributor is a pro-abortion PAC, and she has repeatedly been endorsed by Planned Parenthood.

And in 2008, she ran unopposed in both the primary and the general election.

I am running against her as a regular guy with no money, no organization, and virtually no relevant experience. But at least I know what a person is.

For me to beat her may require a miracle. But as a Christian, I believe in miracles. I’m asking for your prayers, for the intercession of St. Thomas More. And if you want to help spread the word, I’d be grateful for that as well.

St. Thomas More, Patron of politicians, ora pro nobis.

The Church of “Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That.”

Or, Would You Mind Removing the Dagger of Christian Fellowship From Between My Shoulder Blades, Thanks?

America Magazine offers its diagnosis of the problem with Obama being given an honorary degree at Notre Dame. And, in a shocking twist, the real problem is the group of unwashed hooligans who made the Baby Jenkins cry.

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In the midst of an excellent piece on the abortion issue, Teri O’Brien recently asked the question, “could one be a ‘centrist’ on the issue of slavery?”

The answer is, of course one could. Back in the day, U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas (D-IL; who was Barack Obama’s direct predecessor in the U.S. Senate), was the voice of moderation on the slavery issue. Douglas could be described as “pro-choice” on slavery, although he preferred to speak of “popular sovereignty,” by which he meant the rights of the people of the several states and territories to decide the slavery question for themselves. (more…)

Alan Keyes and a Catholic priest were among 21 pro-lifers who were arrested for a protest march onto Notre Dame’s campus.

Although I will admit Mr. Keyes is a little crazy, he is a tenacious supporter of the rights of the unborn. I had the privilege of meeting him in Illinois when he challenged the ambitous senatorial candidate Barack Obama.  He gave an incredibly fiery pro-life speech and was a gracious enough to give me a photo op after.

I found something particularly puzzling in an article in yesterday’s Washington Times. The article covers several mothers who elected not to abort their children even though the children had been diagnosed with disabilities, some of which proved fatal within minutes of the child’s birth. One particular story stood out:

…Anna Lise “Cubby” LaHood, a Silver Spring woman…learned in the spring of 1988 that her unborn son, Francis, would only live briefly outside the womb.

Cubby and husband Dan LaHood decided that while their son may die, it would not be at their hands. Reaction was swift; her family disinherited Mrs. LaHood and refused to see the child.

What kind of reaction is that? “Because you refused to abort your child, we are going to disinherit you.” I think we can do away with the common pro-choice articulation that “nobody really advocates for abortion; they merely advocate for choice.”

The Boy Scouts are being sued again, and the Ninth Circuit has invited everybody to play:

The City of San Diego leases portions of Balboa Park and Fiesta Island to the San Diego Boy Scouts, which use the land to operate a camp and aquatic center. The Boy Scouts use the leased areas for their own events but otherwise keep them open to the general public — and have spent millions of dollars to improve and maintain facilities on the properties, eliminating the need for taxpayer funding. While the Boy Scouts’ membership policies exclude homosexuals and agnostics, the Scouts have not erected any religious symbols and do not discriminate in any way in administering the leased parklands. (more…)

Now that it’s clear that laurels will be offered to the President regardless of the protests from the wider Church, there is still one way for UND to salvage something positive out of the controversy.

That way would be for Fr. Jenkins himself to give the speech defending Catholic life principles and respectfully criticizing the President’s words, executive actions and overall record. 

One of the greatest sins of Jenkins and the administration is that they have acted like Notre Dame is just a rental hall, providing a location (along with matchless catering and open bar at affordable prices!) for the President, but not really being otherwise involved.

For equal time, they invite outsiders (Glendon) to do the “dirty work” of really (as opposed to pro forma) standing up to the President.

This is where he, and they, have failed, conveying and strengthening the distinct impression that it’s not really ND’s place to stand up for the truth, no matter how uncomfortable that might make everyone.

“Naw–let’s fling the Laetare at Glendon and let the lady mercenary do our fighting for us.  And the good news is that she leaves afterwards.  Win-win!”

Now they are scrambling for a Plan B. 

How’s that Rent-a-Pro-Lifer strategy working for you now?

This is unacceptable.  Instead of standard form talking points briefly ”disagreeing,” it’s time for Fr. Jenkins to step up to the plate and do ND’s job.   Charitably, but unequivocally, calling the President to account for his failings on life issues and witnessing to the Church’s position on these central questions.  The honor of the university, and the greater good of  the Church in America, require no less.

Do I think it likely?  No.  But it would go a long way toward ending the controversy and repairing the breach.