abortion

Medical conscience is under sustained assault as doctors are being threatened with societal punishment or professional discipline for refusing to provide controversial but legal interventions such as abortion, euthanasia, and gender transition against their religious or moral beliefs. Now, a British Columbia doctor has been fined $28,100 for refusing to administer puberty blockers to a child based on his religious and moral objections. From the CBC story:

The decision describes Child Q, the 14-year-old at the centre at the decision, as a “brave, sensitive, kind transgender girl.”

It says in late 2020, she came out as transgender and struggled with her mental health as she entered puberty. Ajaero referred her to the B.C. Gender Clinic, where an endocrinologist prescribed Lupron, a medication that pauses puberty.

According to the decision, Child Q describes the day she started the medication as “one of the best days of my life.”

Lupron needs to be injected every three to four weeks. It can be injected at home, but according to the decision, Child Q and her family preferred to have it done by a doctor.

Her first appointment to get an injection at her family doctor’s was March 5.

The decision said when Ajaero learned that the shot was Lupron, he told Child Q’s mother he would not be administering it.

“He explained this was for religious and cultural reasons, and he hoped that was OK. Mother Q said it was not OK.”

Ajaero’s charting notes from the appointment said: “I noticed that the injection is for gender re-assignment as patient is already in the waiting room with [her] mother. I called mother into the room and explained to her that I would not be able to give the injection. Based on my religious belief and cultural background.”

The bioethicist Quill R Kukla, a philosophy professor at (the Jesuit) Georgetown University, also serves as the editor in chief of one of the most influential bioethics publications, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. To say the least, Kukla is well ensconced within the bioethical establishment.

I bring this up because Kukla was just interviewed about a newly published book the bioethicist authored, Sex Beyond “Yes”: Pleasure and Agency for Everyone. The interview was conducted without challenge by the president and CEO of the Hastings Center — the world’s most prominent bioethics think tank — for its “Bioethics Chat” feature. This is mainstream bioethics with exclamation points, and its content illustrates why I believe the predominant views in the movement are wildly out of sync with those of the general population they supposedly serve.

First, Kukla describes the book’s (which I have not read) sexual theses (emphasis within the text):

I wanted to write a book about good sex — sex that not only manages to avoid being unethical, but that is a joint activity built around pleasure, expressive and respectful of everyone’s agency, and fulfilling and worthwhile for everyone.…

I also wanted to write a book that genuinely spoke to the agency, pleasures, and experiences of all kinds of sexual subjects. In my book, queer sex, kinky sex, and sex for trans people, disabled people, old people, fat people, and nonmonogamous people are just as centered as is traditional sex between heterosexual monogamous couples. I tried to draw on the sexual wisdom of alternative sex communities such as queer and kinky communities, who have often thought and talked deeply about sexual agency because they cannot just slide unreflectively into the given heterocentric, patriarchal scripts provided by our culture.

Did the women’s movement get hijacked? Former Cosmopolitan writer and Subverted author Sue Ellen Browder says yes, and she says she helped do it. In this eye-opening conversation, Sue shares what she witnessed inside Cosmopolitan during the height of the sexual revolution, how media narratives helped reshape American views on sex, marriage, motherhood, and abortion, and why she believes the women’s movement became fused with abortion politics. We discuss the influence of figures such as Betty Friedan, Larry Lader, Simone de Beauvoir, and Kate Millett, the origins of modern feminism, the role of propaganda in shaping public opinion, and what Sue uncovered in her research into Roe v. Wade. Was the sexual revolution an organic cultural shift or a carefully Read More ›

Uterine transplants are becoming more common to enable infertile women — and perhaps, eventually men — to give birth. How’s that project going? A new study detailing the outcomes of more than 40 cases of uterine transplants and subsequent IVF-enabled pregnancies published in JAMA provides details: Between 2016 and March 2026, a total of 44 women underwent uterus transplant. One month after uterus transplant, 37 women had a viable transplanted uterus. As of April 2026, a total of 33 women underwent embryo transfer (90 embryos), resulting in 47 clinical pregnancies in 31 unique women, 39 of which continued to at least 14 weeks’ gestation. In 27 unique women, there were 31 live births: 23 women delivered 1 child and 4 Read More ›

On April 20, Wesley J. Smith appeared on Ave Maria in the Afternoon, hosted by Marcus B. Peter, to discuss his recent article, “Bioethicists Argue That an Unborn Baby Is Merely a ‘Gestator’s’ Body Part.” Smith explains how the authors of a recent Journal of Medical Ethics article employed philosophy to redefine human life, defying the established definitions of science. He also explores the political and legislative implications if this changed definition is accepted. “We can make metaphysical claims, we can make moral claims,” Smith told Peter, “but they should not be such that we deny basic biology and, of course, the claim of a soul does nothing of the kind. But the claim that this is a mere body Read More ›

Anyone paying attention knows that the medical establishment does not believe in any restriction on abortion, and moreover, that it should be provided free anytime a woman wants to terminate a pregnancy. For example, a current editorial in The Lancet celebrates the editors’ view that more than 800 million women recently gaining better access to abortion, while decrying “barriers” such as waiting periods (and unstated, ultrasound imaging) that data shows, save the lives of unborn babies: Gains in legal access to abortion are worth celebrating. An analysis between 1994 and 2023 by Katy Mayall and colleagues showed an incredible trend towards the liberalisation of abortion laws across all regions of the world. 825 million women now have access to abortion Read More ›

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?

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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 ›

Has modern feminism liberated women or has it quietly turned women against their own motherhood? In this episode of Bioethics Babe, I sit down with Kimberly Cook, author of Motherhood Redeemed: How Radical Feminism Betrayed Maternal Love, to examine one of the most controversial questions of our time: Has feminism betrayed motherhood? Kimberly shares her powerful personal journey from embracing modern feminist ideology to rediscovering the beauty of femininity, fertility, and maternal love through her Christian conversion. Together, we explore: This conversation goes beyond politics. It confronts the deeper spiritual question: What happens when women are taught to see their fertility as a curse rather than a gift? From birth control and abortion to the breakdown of the family and Read More ›