Issues in the news

Read an interesting piece on the fertility industry; timely, in the light of the HHS mandate for infertility drugs during an epidemic of infertility that causes so much suffering. Turns out, the infertile couples aren't the only ones who suffer. When they turn to egg "donors," there is no tracking of the effects to their health once they go through a complete donation cycle. In addition, "It is ironic that many of these buyers [of human ova, or eggs] probably seek hormone-free meat and eggs for their dinner table yet have no compunction about treating a woman like an industrial farm chicken and pumping her full of hormones to make her produce more eggs." Read more here.

More trailers here.
Struggling with infertility and the Church's seeming lack of compassion? This book may be a good place to start healing: The Infertility Companion for Catholics: Spiritual and Practical Support for Couples

Catholics and Biotech

I learned from my mother how to put off ironing, but eventually it just has to be done. I tend to wait until there's a good hour's worth of ironing waiting for me so I can tackle it while listening to an audio conference and thus make the effort doubly worth my while. And so I did today.

The conference I listened to had a pretty intimidating title ("Theology of the Body and Dignitatis Personae: Reflections on Christian Anthropology as the Foundation of the Culture of Life: Transforming the Culture of Death from the Roots Up")--but don't let that scare you. The talk covers just the sort of issues you find in the newspaper every day: issues in which Catholic Church teaching seems to be summed up as "just say no" and to be represented as totally out of touch with the needs, concerns and rights of people today. The presenter, Dr. Peter Colosi, looks especially at questions related to in-vitro fertilization and why the Church teaches that this technological "answer" to infertility violates the rights of the very children who are brought into being by means of it.

I found the presentation very helpful; the Q&A after the prepared talk also addressed some of the conundrums society presents us with, giving Catholics a different lens from which to analyze the different issues that are contained in a single question or challenge. In fact, I found the whole thing so helpful that I will be looking for similar presentations that I can share with you from time to time. (Save your ironing!)