Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #227 : Ethical Issues Involved with “Pregnancy Robots”

It remains profoundly unethical to generate new life in test tubes, pregnancy robots, or other devices.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationSeptember 26, 2025

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #226 : A Gift, but With an Expiration Date.

Coming to accept our situation, with all its ups and downs, helps us begin preparing for our earthly end, death itself, prompting us to take up core questions about life’s meaning.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationAugust 29, 2025Death and Dying, Caring for the Elderly and Infirm, Suffering, End-of-Life Issues, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Proportionate and Disproportionate Means

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #225 : "De-Extincting" Long-Vanished Animal Species?

Even if de-extinction efforts do not seem to cross fundamental ethical lines, it behooves us to try to be clear, open, and ecologically-rigorous about the purposes, motivations and goals that undergird these endeavors.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMay 27, 2025Cloning, Genetics and Genome Editing, Research

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #224 : Is There Any Reason I Shouldn’t Do Yoga?

It is precisely those metaphysical and spiritual beliefs surrounding yoga that raise concerns for faithful Christians.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationApril 15, 2025Alternative Medicine, Science and Religion

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #223 : The Trump Executive Order on IVF

Given the moral objectionability of IVF, the administration should seek instead to forbid the practice through statutory mechanisms, or, if that is not yet politically possible, limit and circumscribe the practice by bringing it under tight regulation and oversight.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationFebruary 28, 2025Embryos, Frozen Embryos, Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #222 : Getting “Death with Dignity” Right

We are being cajoled as a society into believing the contradiction that ‘death with dignity’ means killing ourselves, or letting someone else kill us.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationDecember 30, 2024Caring for the Elderly and Infirm, Death and Dying, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Pain Management-Palliative Care and Hospice, Universal Morality

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column # 221 : Catholic Hospitals and “Gender Reassignment” for Minors?

Catholic hospitals may never condone or participate in... the range of practices coming under the heading of “gender transition.” This is especially important when these involve offering puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, "top surgeries" and "bottom surgeries” to children and young people.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationOctober 30, 2024Bodily Enhancement-Mutilation, Cooperation in Evil, Human Sexuality, Imposing Our Beliefs, Medical Profession — Ethics and Pastoral-Spiritual, Gender Identity and Being Transgender

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #220 : Evaluating Medical Use of Marijuana During Pregnancy

Cannabis use during pregnancy and lactation raises the prospect of adversely affecting not only neurodevelopment, but also subsequent neuropsychiatric, behavioral and executive functioning of the child.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationAugust 30, 2024Pregnancy Complications, Parenting, Disabilities and the Disabled, Alternative Medicine

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #219 : Contextualizing Near-Death Experiences

... we should generally prefer a natural explanation for a phenomenon, unless and until the evidence for a supernatural explanation becomes truly compelling or overwhelming.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJune 28, 2024Death and Dying, Science and Religion

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #218 : The Most Serious Miscalculation of All?

In considering our own death, we may entertain a strong wish that there be no more sufferings on the other side, especially when it comes to justifying our decision to engage in physician-assisted suicide. Simply having such a wish, however, does not actually make it so.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMay 23, 2024Death and Dying, End-of-Life Issues, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Imposing Our Beliefs, Suffering, Universal Morality

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #217 : Poking the Hornet’s Nest of IVF

IVF involves at least two major moral problems —the ‘collateral damage problem’ and the ‘intrinsic problem.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMarch 29, 2024Artificial Insemination, Embryos, Frozen Embryos, Imposing Our Beliefs, Infertility, In Vitro Fertilization, Law and Ethics

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #216 : Surrogacy and Child Trafficking

Surrogacy involves a form of “trafficking” of children, implying that children are being bought and sold, treated as property and often transported across international borders, which, all in all, sums up many contemporary aspects of surrogacy.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationFebruary 29, 2024In Vitro Fertilization, Parenting, Surrogacy, Infertility

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #215 : The Ethics of Neuroimplants and Brain-Computer Interfaces

Brain-Computer Interfaces could offer important medical and therapeutic uses in the future, they also are poised for dubious or clearly immoral uses.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationOctober 24, 2023Bodily Enhancement-Mutilation, Disabilities and the Disabled, Research

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #214 : Genetic Privacy- Should Law Enforcement Have Access to Your Newborn’s Blood?

Our DNA and our genetic code contains important personal information about us. This means that our individual ‘bio-informatics’ should not be used or brokered by others without our awareness and consent.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJuly 31, 2023Informed Consent

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column #213 : Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria and the Tragic Seduction of Our Daughters

Sex touches us at a deeper level than other activities, binding us to another. It speaks a language not of autonomy, but of communion and enduring self-gift.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJune 30, 2023Human Sexuality, Sex Education, Gender Identity and Being Transgender, Bodily Enhancement-Mutilation

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 212: What About Synthetic Embryos?

A great deal is at stake in these kinds of synthetic embryo experiments that threaten to manipulate and destroy human life.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMay 31, 2023Embryos, Stem Cell Research, Research

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 211 : Setting a Moral Vision as Parents

Setting a moral vision for one's children can be a Herculean task requiring enormous dedication.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationApril 28, 2023Imposing Our Beliefs, Parenting, Universal Morality

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 210 : Suicidal Fears and Authentic Accompaniment

We need to care for them in a more truthful way — accompanying, supporting, and helping them to address underlying issues — so they can begin to find real healing.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMarch 31, 2023Gender Identity and Being Transgender, Parenting, Suffering

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 209 : Holding the Line on Brain Death

Even to be “slightly alive” is still to be alive. If the language of the UDDA ends up being changed to allow for a declaration of brain death even with continued hypothalamic functioning, individuals who are not-quite-dead will be treated as if they were already dead.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationFebruary 28, 2023Brain Death, Death and Dying, End-of-Life Issues, Organ Donation

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 208 : Young Women Giving Themselves Away For Nothing

When young women immodestly display their feminine attributes and participate in pornography, they end up objectifying themselves, trivializing their sexuality, and harming their interpersonal relationships.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJanuary 31, 2023Human Sexuality, Premarital Sex, Sex Education, Pornography, Universal Morality

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