Archive | Page 2

The push for unlimited abortion access is now advancing beyond the issue of “choice.” A newly published article in Ethics, the University of Chicago Press’s prestigious peer-reviewed journal, argues that pregnant minors must abort — even if that requires coercion and force.

The authors, a University of British Columbia philosophy professor and an aspiring philosopher, emphasize the fact that minors are children. From “Justice for Girls: On Provision of Abortion as Adequate Care” (citations omitted, my emphases):

Both opponents of abortion and liberal defenders of a woman’s right to control her own body make a mistake in relation to impregnated children. They both overlook that an impregnated girl is a child. As such, the adults responsible for her care should never pressure or compel her to continue a pregnancy. Nor should they confront her with the three “options” of abortion, adoption, or mothering, as medical professionals are currently advised to do. Instead, her adult caregivers should view her impregnation as a malady and take steps to terminate it.

On the transgender issue, we are continually told — I don’t know about these particular authors’ views — that a minor girl can decide to have her puberty blocked or breasts removed. Somehow, when it comes to continuing a pregnancy, she can’t?

Do cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is in jeopardy justify abortion? These are the hardest questions in the abortion debate: emotionally charged, deeply tragic, and often used to challenge the pro-life position. But how should we think about these cases from a medical, ethical, and human perspective? In this episode of Bioethics Babe, I sit down with Fr. Tad Pacholczyk, priest, neuroscientist, and Senior Ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, to take on these difficult questions head-on. We explore: If you’ve ever wondered how to think clearly and compassionately about the hardest cases, tune in to this discussion. For Episode Resources, please visit the episode page here. For more information, the latest episodes, and additional Read More ›

A few months ago, I posted about a Republican-sponsored bill in Wisconsin that would preempt local communities from enacting “nature rights” ordinances. I wrote at the time: If the bill passes, I suspect that the Democrat governor will veto it. Nature rights was adopted into the platform of Florida’s Democratic Party, and I predict it will eventually become a plank of the national party as it is becoming a zealous progressive cause as a means of combatting climate change and hobbling capitalism. But at least a veto would be clarifying. Later, Wisconsin Democrat legislators heightened my expectation by filing a resolution in support of granting nature “inherent rights, including the right to exist, flourish, regenerate, and be restored.” The Republican Read More ›

In one of the great atrocities in human history, Chinese political prisoners are tissue-typed and later murdered and harvested to supply the country’s thriving organ transplant black market. How long have regime enemies been so targeted and how does the system work? For years, that has been difficult to discern fully. China is one of the world’s most secretive societies Read More ›

An article in The Lancet decries the recent 17th World Conference on Bioethics, Medical Ethics, and Health Law for failing to condemn “genocide.” Of course, the authors are referencing Israel’s self-defense in Gaza. From, “Silence on Genocide at the World Conference on Bioethics:” Between Nov 24 and Nov 27, 2025, the International Chair in Bioethics held its 17th World Conference on Bioethics, Medical Ethics, and Health Law in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Despite being hosted in a nation whose President has vocally condemned the “genocide in Gaza” at the UN, the conference stood in stark contrast to its setting. No scheduled sessions discussed the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, representing a profound disconnect between the event’s location and its content… If an organisation claiming Read More ›

The University of Sussex has published a “toolkit” to enable political and legal action to grant “rights” to trees. This is consistent with the radical environmentalist activism seen in many universities, such as Harvard Law, which is now teaching “nature rights” principles and strategies to students.

“Tree rights” is a subset of the overarching “nature rights” movement, which also includes “river rights,” “ocean rights,” and even “rights for the moon.” I don’t have space to discuss the entire 186-page advocacy treatise — developed over three years, evidencing the energy and commitment of nature rights activists to their cause — but here’s a fair nutshell overview.

As we have seen before, “tree rights” advocacy principles are steeped in mysticism and neo-paganism. From “The Rights of Trees, Woodlands, and Forests Toolkit”:

Alongside economic and functional values, many belief systems recognise trees, woodlands and forests as living, sacred, intelligent beings. In Pagan, Celtic and many Indigenous worldviews, trees are ancestors, teachers and kin. Such worldviews align with the Rights of Nature movement, which recognises nature not as property, but as a rights-bearing community of life.

In other words, tree rights advocacy is based substantially on irrationality. Trees are alive, to be sure. But they are not “intelligent.” Good grief, they aren’t even sentient. Sacred is a religious concept, as is the myth or belief (take your pick) that they are our “ancestors.”

In an age of IVF, embryo selection, and a rapidly expanding fertility industry, couples facing infertility are often given a clear message: if you want a child badly enough, technology can make it happen. But what if that’s not the whole story? What if infertility is not just a medical condition to be solved but a profound personal, relational, and even spiritual trial? And what if a life without biological children can still be deeply meaningful and truly fruitful? In this episode of Bioethics Babe, I sit down with Leigh Snead, author of Infertile but Fruitful, fellow with the Catholic Association, and co-host of the nationally syndicated show Conversations with Consequences to explore the deeper questions surrounding infertility in the Read More ›

Planned Parenthood is having a rougher time than it once did. Fifty or so clinics have closed due to financial difficulties associated with defunding from the government. Not to worry! As reported in the New York Times — a California clinic is offering cosmetic procedures to help keep the doors open. First, the Times‘ reporter Alisha Haridasani Gupta, describes the core mission of PP clinics. Notice what she leaves out: Nationwide, Planned Parenthood, which provides birth control, preventive sexual health screenings, prenatal care and primary care for millions of patients, many of them on Medicaid, is facing enormous challenges. These include significant cuts to Medicaid reimbursements, increased costs of treatments and staffing, and a “hostile political environment,” said Angela Vasquez-Giroux, Read More ›

The usual suspect medical and science journals have featured far fewer columns promoting progressive politics of late. Alas, it couldn’t last forever. The New England Journal of Medicine just published two opinion articles decrying immigration enforcement as inimical to public health.

The first column focuses generally on the adversity the author believes is caused to illegal immigrant communities by enforcing the law:

Current immigration enforcement is disrupting medical follow-up, exacerbating mental health symptoms, causing more patients to skip preventive care, and deepening mistrust in public institutions. In my clinical practice, I have seen sharp increases in anxiety, school absenteeism, deferred visits, and acute psychiatric symptoms after enforcement events. These effects are both predictable and preventable. Clinicians, health systems, and policymakers should recognize immigration enforcement as a social determinant of health currently implicated in a public health crisis and act accordingly. [Citations omitted.]

In other words, don’t enforce the law.

What is death? It’s the moment a human being ceases to exist. But when is that exactly? We tend to think we know the answer, but what if the question is not that simple, especially when it comes to brain death? In this episode of Bioethics Babe, pediatric neurologist Dr. Christopher DeCock examines one of the most important questions in medicine, law, and bioethics: What if the medical criteria used to declare someone brain dead are not actually proving what we think they are proving? Current brain death determinations are largely based on clinical brain death criteria developed by the American Academy of Neurology, including coma, absence of brainstem reflexes, and apnea testing. But do these tests truly demonstrate the Read More ›