June 12, 2024
(New York Times) – Southern Baptists, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, voted on Wednesday to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization. The vote was an indication that ordinary evangelicals are increasingly open to arguments that equate embryos with human … Read More
June 10, 2024
(Axios) – Increased attention to patients’ spiritual needs would improve U.S. public health, researchers argue in a new Health Affairs article. Why it matters: A growing body of scientific evidence shows that spiritual beliefs and practices positively affect health, but patients’ … Read More
June 5, 2024
(Associated Press) — When faced with infertility, Amanda and Jeff Walker had a baby through in vitro fertilization but were left with extra embryos — and questions. Tori and Sam Earle “adopted” an embryo frozen 20 years earlier by another couple. … Read More
May 3, 2024
(Beatrice Institute Podcast) – As a bioethicist and Catholic deacon-in-training, Dr. Michael Deem has spent years in the medical trenches as well as in theological and philosophical research. Michael Deem joins Grant in this episode to answer questions such as, … Read More
April 30, 2024
(Vox) – More than half a century ago, men of science and men of faith gathered together to unlock the mysteries of female fertility. The answer: urine from the brides of Christ. And lo, those nuns gaveth. All that urine, … Read More
April 29, 2024
(NPR) – Now at 74, Collins’ life looks very different. After helping the world navigate a health crisis, his attention has shifted to battling his own. “It’s one thing to be imagining what somebody is experiencing as you’re giving them … Read More
April 16, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – Active religious practice, such as going to churches, synagogues and mosques, is linked to mental well-being, according to a growing body of research. One possible explanation for the link, researchers and clergy say, is that places … Read More
April 8, 2024
(Associated Press) – The Vatican on Monday declared gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as grave violations of human dignity, putting them on par with abortion and euthanasia as practices that it said reject God’s plan for human life. The Vatican’s doctrine … Read More
February 28, 2024
(Washington Post via MSN) – In an Alabama Supreme Court ruling equating IVF embryos with people, Chief Justice Tom Parker cited arguments from across the planet and the centuries, all leading to one source for the court’s judgment: “God.” In … Read More
February 20, 2024
(KFF Health News) – The Catholic Church’s directives are often at odds with accepted medical standards, especially in areas of reproductive health, according to physicians and other medical practitioners. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ clinical guidelines for managing … Read More
February 15, 2024
(New York Times) – There is a lot going on for Father Benanti, who, as both the Vatican’s and the Italian government’s go-to artificial intelligence ethicist, spends his days thinking about the Holy Ghost and the ghosts in the machines. … Read More
February 14, 2024
(The Atlantic) – Death reminds us of the limits of romantic love, but it also sets romantic love free. It allows love to take its place alongside other goods, some that last and others that are fleeting. Death brings a … Read More
February 8, 2024
(Public Discourse) – Despite the lip service given to the “all are welcome” ethos of medical education, the culture of the medical profession typically implies that there is actually a very narrow set of “acceptable” anthropological perspectives that a physician … Read More
February 6, 2024
(Commonweal) – In December, the AI Research Group for the Vatican Centre for Digital Culture released Encountering AI: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations, a study of artificial intelligence and its role in human life and society. The result is a book … Read More
January 9, 2024
(Associated Press) – Pope Francis called Monday for a universal ban on what he called the “despicable” practice of surrogate motherhood, as he included the “commercialization” of pregnancy in an annual speech listing threats to global peace and human dignity. … Read More
January 5, 2024
(The Conversation) – In 15 years as a primary care physician, I have seen the effects of dehumanizing medical care – and the difference it makes when a patient feels they are being respected, not just “treated.” Though “relational medicine” … Read More
December 5, 2023
(Vox) – Despite the past two decades of research documenting the tight relationship between psychedelics and meaningful experiences, we still know surprisingly little about what’s actually going on in the brain when psychedelic-assisted meaning sets in. In a paper published … Read More
November 21, 2023
(The Guardian) – Patients who refuse curative treatment often do so based on their values while their flummoxed doctors act from a place of rationalism. Could I have met her expectation of some divine benediction with my grounding in science? … Read More
September 15, 2023
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