Know the Issues

Abortion has been one of the most divisive issues in America since states were forbidden to outlaw abortion after the 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision. Since that time, over 50 million abortions have been performed in the United States with an average of 3400 abortions being performed each day.

• I have had an abortion. What can you do to help me?
• Does the Catholic Church oppose abortion if it is needed to save a woman’s life?
• Does the Catholic Church oppose abortion in the case of pregnancy due to rape or incest?
• What about women who have had abortions? How does the church view them?
• Has the Church always opposed legal abortion?

For some people, end-of-life care involves the blessings and struggles that accompany old age. For others, it involves medical decisions that must be made without warning as a result of a sudden illness or accident that can afflict people of any age. In these situations patients and their loved ones must decide which course of action, if any, upholds the dignity of the person nearing the end of life. While the Church recognizes, and encourages compassionate care that alleviates the suffering of those who are near death, She also vigorously teaches that immoral means (such as euthanasia or direct killing) may never be used to reduce suffering even if they are used with apparently good intentions.

• Does the Church teach that we are obligated to use every possible means to stay alive?
• Does the church permit euthanasia so that people who are suffering can be “put out of their misery”?
• Does the Church believe that if someone is a vegetable (is in a Persistent Vegetative State) they should be kept alive?
• Why can’t someone choose to end their own life is they desire?

If the Catholic Church believes that the creation of human beings is good, then why would the Church oppose something ART’s like in-vitro-fertilization? First, the Church does not oppose all assisted reproductive technologies. In fact, organizations like the Pope Paul VI institute have been researching for years into medical practices and treatments that treat the root causes of infertility without violating the sanctity of the marital act.

• Does the Church permit adopting frozen embryos, or as they’re sometimes called, “snowflake babies?”
• What reproductive technologies can a Catholic licitly use?

As much as war can be glorified in movies and videogames, any veteran of combat can summarize their experience in this oft repeated phrase, “war is hell”. But while war always involves evils that will occur in combat, sometimes the choice to not engage in war can be an even greater evil. This is the theory behind the Church’s teaching of the possibility that a nation can wage a just war. Based on the writings of St. Augustine, Catholic Just War theory requires in order for a war to be just, four conditions must be met.

Embryonic Stem Cell research (ESCR) involves harvesting human embryos (usually discarded embryos from IVF clinics) for their stem cells, the primordial cells in their body that have the potential to change into any other kind of cell (such as bone, muscle, or nerve, etc.) that could be used to repair damaged cells in a sick patient (such as turning stem cells into nerve cells and repair a patients damaged spine). However, the process used to extract these cells kills the human embryo in the process and therefore cannot be tolerated in a just society.