Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 202: A Great Nation Begins to Come to Its Senses

As new legal initiatives begin appearing on state legislative dockets, Americans will have an opportunity to mount a full court press to bring abortion to an end in their home states.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationApril 29, 2022Abortion, Conscience, Natural Law, Universal Morality

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 201: Treasuring Our Future Timelines

Our choices today powerfully affect future timelines in either positive or detrimental ways.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMarch 31, 2022Abortion, RU-486, Sexual Assault

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 196 : New Cures from Embryonic Stem Cells?

Receiving a diabetes treatment produced with embryonic stem cells signals a willingness on our part to tolerate the killing of younger human beings in order to benefit others who are older.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationOctober 29, 2021Abortion, Cooperation in Evil, COVID-19, Embryos, Fetal Tissue Harvesting, Stem Cell Research, Vaccines and Vaccination

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 194 : Decisions of Consequence

Each day for us involves a walk along the threshold of eternity, through small and not-so-small gestures, even though we may not always see the full implications of each of our decisions.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationAugust 30, 2021Abortion, Conscience, RU-486

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 189 : Countering Catholic Misinformation About Vaccines

But Catholics have to be on guard against anti-science prophets, no matter how well meaning, and the false witness they bear.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMarch 31, 2021COVID-19, Vaccines and Vaccination, Abortion

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 186 : Vaccines and Other Entanglements with Abortion

I’m often asked whether sample letters are available to help with writing to vaccine manufacturers who use abortion-derived cell lines.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationDecember 30, 2020COVID-19, Vaccines and Vaccination, Abortion

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 185 : Must Catholics Refuse a COVID-19 Vaccine Made with a Cell Line from an Abortion?

If we end up facing a choice among multiple COVID-19 vaccines of similar or equal safety and efficacy, as appears likely, it will clearly be preferable to choose alternatives with a better ethical profile.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationNovember 30, 2020COVID-19, Vaccines and Vaccination, Conscience, Abortion

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 175: Christian Girls and Abortion

Mothers and fathers may have never discussed the possibility of an unplanned pregnancy to let their children know ahead of time that, even if they act contrary to their advice and conceive a child, they will still be there for them.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJanuary 30, 2020Abortion, Human Sexuality, Parenting, Premarital Sex, Sex Education, Cooperation in Evil

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 173: Medicine and a Sense of the Sacred

We need to attend carefully to the graced realities we regularly handle lest we end up squandering or losing our sense of the sacred.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationNovember 30, 2019Abortion, Caring for the Elderly and Infirm, Death and Dying, Disabilities and the Disabled, Imposing Our Beliefs, Universal Morality, Sacraments, Medical Profession — Ethics and Pastoral-Spiritual, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 169: An Authentic Democracy

Even as we benefit from the blessings of liberty, we can fall prey to erroneous conceptions about the meaning of freedom, as the rights of some begin to be subtly elevated over the rights of others.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJuly 30, 2019Abortion, Imposing Our Beliefs, Law and Ethics, Voting and Ethics

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 167: The Corpse Raiders

When it comes to extracting cells or organs from the corpse of a deceased child at an abortion clinic, however, these ethical requirements for consent cannot legitimately be satisfied.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMay 30, 2019Abortion, Fetal Tissue Harvesting, Informed Consent, Organ Donation

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 164: “Exceptions” and the Undermining of the Moral Law

Encouraging exceptions is the entry point into a broader repudiation of our moral duties towards each other, the first of which is the duty to respect the inviolability of each other’s life.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationFebruary 28, 2019Abortion, Law and Ethics, Universal Morality

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 163: The Welcome Outreach of Perinatal Hospice

This approach seeks to set up a particular supportive environment in which all the members of the family can receive the child following delivery, hold and name the newborn, and fully acknowledge his or her brief but meaningful life.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJanuary 30, 2019Abortion, Death and Dying, Prenatal Testing, Pain Management-Palliative Care and Hospice, Disabilities and the Disabled, End-of-Life Issues, Pregnancy Complications

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 161: Abortion Funding — Cutting off the Blood Supply

Approximately half a billion dollars of taxpayer money is received annually by Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of ‘pregnancy terminations’ in the United States.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationNovember 30, 2018Abortion, Imposing Our Beliefs, Law and Ethics, Universal Morality, Voting and Ethics

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 157: Promethean Medical Temptations

Today, as modern medicine tries to rebuff death and control our humanity in ever more sophisticated ways, new temptations arise...

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJuly 30, 2018Abortion, End-of-Life Issues, In Vitro Fertilization, Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Research, Gender Identity and Being Transgender

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 153: The Wrong-Headedness of “Wrongful Birth” Lawsuits

At its core, the idea of a ‘wrongful birth’ claim is unreasonable and ethically incoherent.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMarch 30, 2018Law and Ethics, Abortion, Parenting, Disabilities and the Disabled, Pregnancy Complications

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 146: The Expendable Children

This attitude of seeing our offspring as expendable is becoming more widely accepted not only among IVF customers, but also among biomedical researchers…

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationAugust 30, 2017Abortion, Embryos, In Vitro Fertilization, Genetics and Genome Editing, Research

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 117: Undoing a Chemical Abortion

… women were able to carry their pregnancies to term after receiving an intramuscular injection of progesterone. Since 2012, dozens of other women have successfully reversed their chemical abortions.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationMarch 30, 2015RU-486, Abortion

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 103: Violinist Violence

In reflecting on the specifics..we begin to appreciate the importance of never subjecting an innocent third party, whether a musician or an in utero child, to direct lethal harm simply because they find themselves in a state of radical dependence upon another human being.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationJanuary 30, 2014Abortion, Sexual Assault

Making Sense of Bioethics: Column 102: Ethical Directives and the Care of Pregnant Women in Catholic Hospitals

The application of Catholic moral teaching to this issue is therefore directed toward two important and specific ends: first, the complete avoidance of directly killing the child, and, second, the preservation of the lives of both mother and child to the extent possible under the circumstances.

Rev. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, PhD—Director of EducationDecember 30, 2013Abortion, Pregnancy Complications

“Making Sense of Bioethics” CMS