By Nancy Valko I wanted to be a nurse since I was 5. I was drawn to nursing not only because I wanted to help people but also because medical ethics standards were so high, especially in contrast to some of the corrupt business practices that I saw. I graduated from a Catholic nursing school …
Continue reading "The Divisions in Medical Ethics Could Cost Your or a Loved One’s Life!"
By Nancy Valko Most people volunteer for the pro-life movement. I consider myself a draftee. For me, there was no “choice.” I became a conscript because of personal and professional experiences that followed in the wake of the Roe v. Wade decision. I was a young intensive care unit nurse in 1973. Like most people …
Continue reading "Roe v. Wade’s disastrous impact on medical ethics"
By John Stonestreet with Roberto Rivera In the 1976 made-for-television movie, “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble,” a then-unknown John Travolta introduced Americans to a condition technically called “X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency.” Or, as people have called it since the movie, “bubble boy disease.” Children with “bubble boy disease” can’t fight off infections that the …
Continue reading "Healing, not Enhancing: Drawing Lines in Medical Ethics"
By Michael Cook Over the centuries the Hippocratic Oath has expressed the ideals of the medical profession, although nowadays other versions have supplanted it for graduating medical students– if they take any oath at all. If taken literally the Oath is an anachronism. Who today “swears by Apollo Physician, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, …
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By Xavier Symons There has been significant debate in recent years about the ethics of withdrawing life-sustaining treatment from patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDOCs). Some examples of PDOCs include patients in a minimally conscious state and those in a persistent vegetative state. Prevailing wisdom in both law and ethics suggests that decisions about …
Continue reading "Never ethical or lawful to withdraw treatment from patients with a persistent disorder of consciousness, British Law professor says"
By Dave Andrusko A congressional subcommittee heard testimony today from three experts on the now-more-important-than-ever issue of ethical alternatives to scavenging fetal tissue from aborted babies. As NRL News Today has reported over the past few days, the Trump administration is planning to fund such alternatives with $20 million over the next two years. This …
Continue reading "Scientific experts tell House subcommittee there are many proven alternatives to using tissue from aborted babies for research"
By Dave Andrusko Sarah Terzo’s except from an academic study posted elsewhere today inspired me to revisit the personal stories from young residents that appeared in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, under the headline “Four Residents’ Narratives on Abortion Training: A Residency Climate of Reflection, Support, and Mutual Respect.” I first learned of the …
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By Sarah Terzo From a resident who was in training to become an abortionist, but decided against performing abortions as a career: “When I started residency, I was open to the possibility of providing terminations. I was and remain uncertain about when life begins… Increasingly, I have found myself caught up in an endless array …
Continue reading "Training to become an abortionist, resident chooses not to do because of “abyss of ambiguity”"
By Wesley J. Smith Until recently, healthcare was not culturally controversial. Medicine was seen as primarily concerned with extending lives, curing diseases, healing injuries, palliating symptoms, birthing babies, and promoting wellness—and hence, as a sphere in which people of all political and social beliefs were generally able to get along. That consensus has been shattered. …
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In the United States’ most culturally aligned nation, a race toward the once-unthinkable accelerates By Wesley J. Smith It never made any sense. The assurance that active euthanasia would always be limited to terminally ill, competent adults just never made any sense. Here’s the problem: Once a society widely supports eliminating suffering by eliminating the …
Continue reading "Canadian Doctors Get Ready for Child Euthanasia"Discriminatory attitudes towards babies with Down syndrome are still rife in the medical profession. Campaigners say pregnant women were being “pushed towards terminations” By SPUC—the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children In news that shows how prevalent discriminatory attitudes towards babies with Down’s syndrome still are within the medical profession, a mother has spoken …
Continue reading "Welsh Midwife tells mother the purpose of blood test for Down Syndrome “is for terminations”"
By Dave Andrusko In his post for the Catholic Phily, Richard Doerflinger calls new findings and recommendations from a prestigious group of medical organizations nothing short of “game-changing.” Doerflinger, who worked for 36 years in the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is referring to new guidelines from the American …
Continue reading "New “game-changing” findings and recommendations offer new hope to brain-injured patients unfairly labeled “vegetative”"