Culture of Life Foundation Helen Alvaré, J.D., Senior Fellow in Law
Counterintuitive as it seems, a possible means of helping to curb our nonmarital pregnancy rates is to "put the baby back into sex." It is a means of helping men and women view each other as gifts - not instruments, not enemies, not subordinates - and a way of putting first things first - the well-being of children before our own selfish impulses.
Date posted: 2009-11-19
Jon and Kate's divorce would appear to be an unusually large train wreck. But in fact it's only a marginally larger train wreck than any divorce where there are dependent children and not a lot of joint income. Divorce reformers have been pointing this out for decades now. They have moved to the point of introducing bills in various states to slow divorce down or require "fault" justification or mutual consent in some instances. They recognize that marriage is in trouble and needs social support to help sustain itself. They recognize that the negative fallout for children is real. The law has become a player in the culture of marriage, but thus far, for ill and not for good. The Gosselin disaster movie is a good time to spread the word that it's time to think about making some real changes.
Date posted: 2009-10-30
One of the most respected American sociologists, Andrew Cherlin, has recently published The Marriage-Go-Round: the State of Marriage and the Family in America. True to his role at Johns Hopkins University, he proposes in his new work, not only a sociologically based characterization of the American family, but also a public policy response. The book is as important and revealing as it is overwhelming and discouraging to supporters of children's welfare and the overall strength of marriage and families.
Date posted: 2009-10-25
You've heard details from many sources about abortion and current health care reform proposals. You have likely read about what it will do: abolish state limitations on abortion, and trample conscience rights of morally or religiously opposed medical professionals and institutions. You have also likely learned how it will do it: the appointment by the executive branch of a type of health care advisory committee composed of abortion advocates who will have decision-making authority about the package of services which will be deemed "necessary" health care and "essential benefits of coverage."
Date posted: 2009-10-03
Eugenics (Greek for "good birth") involves not only end of life decision-making, but decisions about who should be conceived, or even who should be allowed to live after conception is a fait accompli. Throughout U.S. history, citizens, legislators and judges have weighed arguments about eugenics in connection with proposals about involuntary sterilization, abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide. Today, assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) force us to consider eugenics.
Date posted: 2009-10-01
The Church has identified herself as an "expert in humanity"1. But who has the temerity to claim to be an expert in the female half of humanity? The complete identity of the female - call it the nature of 'femaleness' - is hidden in the complex body-soul unity which constitutes the human person. And so an understanding of the female body is one key to unlock this complex reality. But an understanding of the body is not enough to understand the person. Although human persons are always bodily and human bodies always personal, persons are not reducible to their bodies. They are their bodies, but they are more than their bodies, because the animating principle that makes their bodies to be living bodies is a non-material soul. But is there such thing as a properly "female soul"? Can spirit per se be engendered? These are weighty questions.
Date posted: 2009-09-19
Now setting aside the patent ridiculousness of this latter conclusion (the Roe Court after all upended every single state's abortion ban in one fell swoop), the ACLU's entire statement seems to confirm the optimism often expressed by Maggie Gallagher of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy. She has regularly reminded us that the polls are not moving as fast or as far as same-sex "marriage" proponents suggest and their record of 30 losses in the 30 states which have put same-sex marriage to a popular vote is not indicative of any kind of groundswell of popular support for same-sex unions. Remember the National Abortion Rights Action League's "Pro-Choice America" claims, accompanied with a stunning backdrop of the Statue of Liberty? Now think about the most recent Gallup Poll's reporting that 51% of Americans call themselves "pro-life." Maybe we're winning the culture argument after all, but simply don't see this reflected in popular media.
Date posted: 2009-09-09
We pose the following twelve questions for your consideration. Not all are of equal moral 'weight'. Those questions pertaining to whether the plan deliberately mandates coverage for intrinsically evil acts (e.g., abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and contraceptive acts) or encourages the commission of such acts (e.g., requires end of life counseling encouraging the removal of food and water for patients for whom such care is necessary and effective for sustaining life) have the highest priority.
Date posted: 2009-08-22
Catholics have special gifts and thus special responsibilities here. We have remarkably and uniquely developed moral and systematic theologies touching on the meaning of human sexuality. We are also required to exercise an option for the vulnerable as imitators of Christ. Therefore, -- on the grounds of our profound understandings of the relationships between marriage and child well-being, and between marriage and our ability to glimpse God's love -- Catholics ought to feel especially responsible to be involved in the search for the right contents and mix of legal and religious efforts to re-valorize marriage and marital childbearing.
Date posted: 2009-07-24
The obvious answers are the family, the churches and the state. Media could help. All regularly take up these sorts of questions. But there are fearsome hurdles to success for any of these institutions. My next column - the last in this series about out of wedlock births - will consider how each of these institutions might proceed, as well as the hurdles they face.
Date posted: 2009-07-23
Should the Olsen/Boies case go all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States (a path that could take several years), we can be sure of only one thing: the media circus that will accompany it every step of the way. But perhaps we can also be cautiously optimistic that due to some combination of good arguments about the importance of opposite-sex marriage, and some bad tendencies on the part of the Court to try to read the national mood, marriage will win in the end.
Date posted: 2009-07-22