Eugene F. Diamond

Management of a Pregnancy With an Anencephalic Baby

The use of ultrasound to screen pregnancies has led to earlier bonding of parents to their unborn children as they are able to observe the developing child and watch it move early in pregnancy. In addition, however, some defects previously only recognized at birth have been brought to the attention of parents prior to birth as a result of ultrasonic detection. This is particularly true of abnormalities resulting in structural defects such as neural tube disorders. With the ability to recognize anencephaly in-utero, there has developed pressure to induce early labor in order to terminate the pregnancy of the woman carrying the anencephalic child.

Is there a rheumatic constitution

Summary 1. No characteristic hair color or eye color was found among patients with rheumatic fever. 2. Pallor of the skin occurred in52.4 per cent of patients with acute rheumatic fever but was not a prominent feature in inactive rheumatic subjects. 3. No evidence of racial susceptibilityto rheumatic fever was found in this study. 4. Most patients with rheumatic feverhave a well-proportioned body build with a paucity of both the asthenic and hypersthenic body types. 5. A definite hyperextensibility ofthe metacarpophalangeal joints was demonstrated in both active and inactive rheumatics as compared with controls. 6. Blood group distribution amongrheumatic subjects was not statistically different from that in the general population. 7. In a small group of rheumatic patients, there were 24 per cent who were nonsecretors of ABO substance in the saliva. This is slightly higher than the expected percentage in the general population. The possible relationship to the pathogenesis of rheumatic fever is discussed.

Sterilization in Catholic hospitals.

20. Procedures that induce sterilit y, whether permanent or temporary , are permitted when (a) they are immediately directed to the cure , diminution , or prevention of a serious pathological condition and (b) a simpler treatment is not reasonably available . Hence, for exa mple, oophorectomy or irradiating of the ovaries may be allowed in trea ting carcinoma of the breast and metastasis therefrom and orchidectomy is permitted in the trea tment of carcinoma of the prostate.

Moral and Medical Issues in Boxing

The sport of boxing is unique to the extent that it has elicited commentary regarding its morality and legality as compared with other athletic endeavors. A series of Jesuit Theologians i ,2,3,4 have described boxing as morally unacceptable as have various medical authorities culminating in recent calls for the outlawing of prizefighting by the Journal of the American Medical Association 5. The objections raised from these various disciplines have generally followed one of three basic arguments:

Health-Care Reform and the Catholic Health Association

On March 15, 2010, Cardinal George, speaking for the Catholic bishops, stated that the Senate health-care reform legislation “must be opposed unless and until certain serious moral problems are addressed.”1 Shortly after the signing of the health-care bill, Cardinal George issued an official statement from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops which noted, “whatever good this law achieves or intends, we as Catholic bishops have opposed its passage because there is compelling evidence that it would expand the role of the federal government in funding and facilitating abortion and plans that cover abortion.”2 He goes on to note that,

Response to the American Academy of Pediatrics: Clarification of the Goals Statement "Every Child Should Be Born Wanted"

Abstract The goal of every child a wanted child is a reasonable goal if clarified and extended to avoid ambiguity.

The Catholic Medical Association and the Magisterium

Abstract The Catholic Medical Association is dedicated to all physicians who in their medical practices recognize the irreducible value of every human life as made in the image and likeness of God, including the born, the unborn, and the terminally ill. As Catholic physicians, we will accept as the cornerstone of bioethics the sacred and certain teachings of the Magisterium of the Church.

Stem Cells and the Culture Wars

The stem cell debate cannot be reduced merely to a disagreement as to the efficacy of embryonic stem cells versus adult stem cells. The debate is really a recapitulation of the fundamental conflict about the dignity and indeed the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. In one view, life at all stages of its development has intrinsic value. In this transcendental view of human life, life at all stages has an intrinsic and unquantifiable value. This value transcends the alleged value of research. Human life in its most primitive beginnings, if it is previable or if it is deformed, dying of a fatal disease or however compromised has an ontological being which is still intact. Another point of view relevant to the stem cell debate would evaluate individual life as ha\ring only extrinsic value. Each human life is not an end in itself but may be a means to another end that is the good of society. This extrinsic value is conferred from the outside and some life in existence is said to lack it. Experiments can be carried out on one human life to benefit others. A small injustice done to an early or previable human life may result in large benefits for mankind. Also looming large in the stem cell debate is the recurrent and mostly specious debate as to when life begins. There is virtually unanimous accord in the scientific community as to the reality that life begins with the union of the sperm and ovum in the process of fertilization. Surely there can no longer be any debate as to when life begins when we can make life begin in the process of in vitro fertilization carried out in the laboratory under manmade controlled conditions. The zygote created in this in vitro fertilization procedure is independent. It is not part of the petri dish in which the IVF occurs nor will it be part of the female uterus in which it will subsequently be implanted.

Conflicts of Interest in Medical Ethics

Medicine is a learned profession that has its own intrinsic ethic. Under this intrinsic ethic, the end of medicine is ordered to a good that is health. Technique and conduct are not value-neutral but rather are ordered to this overarching good that is the nature-given end of health. Medicine is a profession precisely because it professes such a goal. Being a professional is more than being a technician. The public profession of medicine as a way of life is an affirmation of the moral nature of our activity. Medicine as a profession is a public declaration of a willingness to devote oneself to others and to serve a higher good. The physician is a moral being who professes and affirms the moral nature of his activity. We have in recent years seen an attempt to convert our profession into a killing activity. Doctors as abortionists kill unbcfm children; doctors accept the responsibility to kill patients with or without their consent as in Holland, or to engage in the subterfuge of physician-assisted suicide, as in the state of Oregon in America. The doctor true to his calling will not violate the taboo against killing. He will not do it for love and he will not do it for money. This is why medicine must be a profession and not merely a business. A physician who is guided primarily by the profit motive will have conceded that he is willing to sacrifice the best interests of his patient in the patients pursuit of health. Recently there has been an erosion of some of the safeguards that have accrued to the protection of the patient and the society. Let us start with information published in medical journals. This information helps to shape diagnostic and therapeutic decisions . For a medical journal to be of value, it must publish authoritative, up-to-date

The Sleeping Giant

In the immediate post World War II period there was a historical resurgence of Christian democratic political sentiment in Western Europe. Led by Georges Bidault in France, AIcide de Gaspaari in Italy and Konrad Adenauer in Germany, dominant parties founded on adherence to Christian democratic natural law concepts energized a spiritual renaissance amid the rubble and destruction of bombed-out combatant nations. The material reconstruction of Western Europe was, of course, the result of massive infusions of financial and technical assistance through the American Marshall Plan. The rehabilitation of Western Europe was more than just a matter of brick and mortar however, since particularly among the defeated participants Germany, Italy, and France (so ignominiously subjugated by the Germans early in the war) there was a need for spiritual recovery as well. To overcome the despair and the ennui of post-war disillusionment, the revitalization of Christian political doctrine and participation was crucial. This was obtunded by the Russian occupation of Eastern Europe including East Germany but there was at least a brief period in which traditional Christian nations coalesced into an entity dedicated to the reclamation of national ideals so cruelly suppressed during the hostilities. A similar opportunity now presents itself in the 21st century aftermath of the culture wars in the United States, which began in the turbulent 1960s with anti-Vietnam protests, peaked in the 1970s with militant feminism and Roe v. Wade and was exacerbated in the 1990s with the rise of homosexual activism and attacks on the institution of marriage. The 2004 election was a watershed event in which Evangelical Protestants and observant Catholics found common ground in public policies aimed at reclaiming Christian values in the public square. The Christian electorate realized the necessity of putting aside differences in