Tag: religious issues

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Lawyers for Catholic hospital argue that a fetus is not a person

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Canon City, Colorado (CNN) — Life begins at conception, according to the Catholic Church, but in a wrongful death suit in Colorado, a Catholic health care company has argued just the opposite.

A fetus is not legally a person until it is born, the hospital’s lawyers have claimed in its defense. And now it may be up to the state’s Supreme Court to decide.

Lori Stodghill was 28 weeks pregnant when she went to the emergency room of St. Thomas More Hospital in Canon City vomiting and short of breath, according to a court document. She went into cardiac arrest in the lobby.

“Lori looked up at me, and then her head went down on her chest,” said her husband, Jeremy Stodghill.

She died at age 31. Her unborn twin boys perished with her. That was New Year’s Day 2006. Stodghill, left behind to raise their then-2-year-old daughter alone, sued the hospital and its owner, Catholic Health Initiatives, for the wrongful deaths of all three.

After about two years of litigation, defense attorneys for the hospital and doctors entered an argument that shocked the widower. Read full article.

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Rabbis Urge Single, Orthodox Women to Freeze Eggs at 38

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Rebecca, an Orthodox Jew from California, was two weeks away from her marriage to the son of a respected rabbi when medication she was taking for migraines triggered a debilitating stroke.

She fell to the floor of the emergency room where she was working as a manager and broke her neck, suffering both spinal cord and brain injuries. When her fiance saw the extent of her disability, he called off the wedding.

“We did everything the Orthodox way,” she said of their three-month engagement after being matched by family members. “I was in the hospital on my wedding day and they got out the wheelchair, and he was so frightened he backed off.” Read full article.

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Congressman links contraception mandate to 9/11, Pearl Harbor Day

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(CBS News) Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., an ardent opponent of the contraception mandate that went into effect Wednesday, is comparing the beginning of the mandate to the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the September 11 terrorist attacks.

“I know in your mind you can think of the times that America was attacked,” Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., said during a news conference. “One is December 7th, that’s Pearl Harbor Day; the other is September 11th and that’s the day of a terrorist attack. I want you to remember August the first 2012 the attack on our religious freedom. That is the date that will live in infamy along with those other dates.”

“Today is the day that religious freedom died,” Kelly said.

Read full article.

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Conversion leads fertility doctor down new path

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Ex-Chicago physician wants to open reproductive center faithful to Catholic doctrine.

The first time Dr. Anthony Caruso saw life created in a petri dish, it brought tears to his eyes. Once one of Chicago’s leading reproductive endocrinologists, he guesses that he helped more than 1,000 children come into the world.

But two years ago, he walked away from his practice and into a confessional at St. John Cantius Roman Catholic Church to repent. Reproductive technology had gone too far, he said, and he could not practice the same kind of medicine anymore.
“We see babies in our Catholic faith as children of God,” said Caruso, 48, of Lombard. “What doesn’t get thought about is the process that brought the babies to be.”

Caruso, now a doctor at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, has proposed opening the St. Anne Center for Reproductive Health.

It would be one of a handful of clinics in the U.S. that helps couples struggling to have children within the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. It would not offer in vitro fertilization (IVF), artificial insemination or certain medicines often prescribed as a course of treatment. It also would be the only center in the nation run by a board-certified reproductive endocrinologist.

Caruso acknowledges that the success rates of measures compatible with church teachings are lower than what advanced reproductive technology can offer. Furthermore, doctors almost always try to accommodate a patient’s religious convictions. But Caruso and other proponents of natural family planning say many fertility practices tend to treat infertility rather than treat the underlying condition of which infertility is a symptom.

Read full article.

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The Coming Culture War Over Fertility Technology

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Abortion is currently the most fevered issue in American life, sometimes even surpassing questions of national security and defense, the economy, international terrorism, health care, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, drug usage, and education.

While we know the shorthand linguistic terms employed in the never-ending public argument over abortion — pro-choice, pro-life, personhood, “war against women,” family values, Roe v. Wade, sanctity of life, “safe, legal and rare” — there is an emerging issue with a three-letter abbreviation that may soon dominate our religious, political and cultural debates: assisted reproductive technology, or ART.

Just as abortion has divided our nation, ART could do the same, especially as it becomes better known and more widely practiced in America.

ART offers women — heterosexual, lesbian, single, or married — a method to become pregnant through a complex procedure involving anonymous donor sperm. A recent Religion News Service story indicated that 30,000-60,000 donor-conceived children are born each year in the United States and as the technology improves, that number will grow.

Read full article.

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Conservatives Line Up Against Sperm Donors, But Lack the Power to Ban Them

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WASHINGTON — A new documentary exploring the ethical implications of sperm donation is creating a buzz among religious audiences.

“Anonymous Father’s Day” delves into bioethics from the perspective of donor-conceived children who grow up not knowing their biological fathers. The film gives fodder to opponents of assisted reproductive technology, who argue the fertility “industry” has led to psychologically scarred children and the “commodification” of human life.

ART’s ethical implications are not solely a religious issue, and “Anonymous Father’s Day” makes no explicit religious claims. But its promotion of heterosexual marriage attracts religious audiences, who oppose the reproductive alternatives ART facilitates.

Jennifer Lahl, the writer, director and producer behind the film, recently held back-to-back screenings in Washington, D.C., at the conservative Christian-focused Family Research Council and the Catholic Information Center. Lahl plans future showings at Christian institutions.

This is the second film on gamete donation by Lahl, founder and president of The Center for Bioethics and Culture, a California-based nonprofit that studies beginning and end-of-life issues.

Read full article.

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New Hampshire’s HB 217 May (Inadvertantly) Make Fertility Treatments Scarce

ASRM News and Research

When New Hampshire legislature amended HB 217 to change the proposed fetal murder and homicide charges to apply only to fetuses of 24 weeks gestation and beyond, many politicians and advocates believed the bill was unlikely to have much effect on reproductive rights.

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Should Catholic Schools Fire Teachers Over Infertility Treatments?

ASRM News and Research

Emily Herx was a popular literature teacher at St. Vincent de Paul School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, until she used her medical leave for in vitro fertilization. Herx lost her job and says a church official called her a “grave, immoral sinner.” When she appealed to Fort Wayne Bishop Kevin Rhoades, he told her IVF was “an intrinsic evil, which means that no circumstances can justify it.” The federal government saw things a bit differently. Herx filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and won — paving the way for a civil lawsuit.