News and Views from around the World
Campus uproar over Matt Walsh appearance
"I want to thank also the leftist cry-babies for the free advertising
spray-painted all over campus," Walsh said prior to the screening
of his movie What Is A Woman? at the University of Wisconsin.Then he addressed the heads of the school, referencing a message the university had sent out before his arrival warning students that a speaker whose views "we believe are harmful toward our trans community" was slated to appear.
"To the UW-Madison administration: you should be ashamed of yourselves. You are disgraceful, self-debasing cowards, and you spineless, gutless clowns owe me an apology."
In response to the video, Walsh tweeted: "Well, you can be on
the side that eats the Bible and castrates children, or you can be
on literally any side but that one. Your choice, America."
Excerpt from Dana Kennedy, New York Post, October 29, 2022.
Transfiguring the unborn
Unwanted early human life is often described as merely a "cluster of cells", a "clump of tissue", "uterine material", the "product of conception", etc. Of course, each of us adults is also a "cluster of cells", a "clump of tissue", and a "product of conception", but we do not refer to each other in these terms because they underdescribe the reality of what we are as human beings.
The scientific language of "blastocyst", "embryo", and "foetus" can also be used to the same dehumanising effect. For the purpose of scientific understanding of the different stages of human development, there is nothing wrong with it. But for the purpose of moral understanding, it is problematic.
The pro-life feminist Sidney Callahan notes that the prochoice
feminist position involves a dehumanising attitude that
privileges the powerful over the powerless to which feminists
have objected when it has been directed towards women:
"Pitting women against their own offspring is not only morally
offensive, it is psychologically and politically destructive.
Women will never climb to equality and social empowerment
over mounds of dead foetuses, numbering now in the millions."
Excerpt from David McPherson, Public Discourse (USA),
September 22, 2022.
Novel family arrangements harm children
Adoption unfolds as a gift to both parties, but it exists to repair something that in the natural order of things would never happen. In a perfect world, children would never be separated from their parents. While adoption is a beautiful redemption, it is always a response to tragedy.
Whether through adoption or artificial reproductive technology (ART), same-sex parenting and other modern arrangements divide and sometimes even eradicate the maternal and/or paternal bonds children need to thrive.
How could I glibly think of creating my children to be "fatherless"? By considering only my desire for children, and not their needs or future well-being.
From facile heterosexual marriage dissolutions to novel family
arrangements, children are harmed when their rights to their own
mother and father are disregarded for the sake of adult desires.
Excerpt from Jean C. Lloyd, Public Discourse (USA),
October 23, 2022.
Canada comfortable with killing its disabled
Only months after Ottawa green-lit one of the world's most liberal euthanasia regimes, a series of controversial statesanctioned deaths have attracted growing international criticism that the Canadian health system now seems to be actively killing its disabled patients.
This week, a feature by the Associated Press quoted secretly recorded audio from a London, Ontario hospital that appeared to show a medical ethicist raising the subject of euthanasia with a disabled patient, Roger Foley, after reminding him that he was costing the system "north of $1,500 a day".
Foley told the AP that he had never previously expressed a
desire for medically assisted death, and began recording the staff
after they kept mentioning it to see if he had "an interest".
Excerpt from Tristin Hopper, National Post (Canada),
August 15, 2022.
Don't let doctors kill sick patients
for their organs
Because of long transplant waiting lists, bioethics and medical establishments are bent on increasing the source of organs. It has gotten so bad that some of the most influential policy advocates in bioethics are now urging that doctors be allowed to do what was once considered unthinkable — kill would-be donors for their organs.
Harvesting vital organs from living patients is illegal under what's known as the "dead donor rule" (DDR). The DDR not only prevents removing livers, lungs, hearts, both kidneys, and the like from living people, but its corollary forbids killing patients for the purpose of obtaining them — even if they consent.
Thus, the DDR ensures that every prospective organ donor
remains a fully equal member of the human community with the
right to life until their natural death.
Excerpt from Wesley J. Smith, Epoch Times (New York),
October 17, 2022.
Why Beijing is at war with Christianity
China studied the fall of the Soviet Union extensively. About 1991–1992, the Chinese state press said that the role of the Christian church in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union — probably with particular respect to Pope John Paul II — was a major factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The reports said if China does not want the same thing to happen in its land, I quote, "it must strangle the baby while it is still in the manger". This is an allusion to Herod killing the firstborn in order to destroy any coming King. We must kill this Child Jesus while he is still in the manger.
There was a fear that Christianity, in the case of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, kept some civil space open. It was one of the last places, even though restricted, where people could manage some open space, and it was a counter-authority to the government.
The Chinese are aware of this. That's one of the reasons for
their fear of religion in general, but particularly of Christianity.
Excerpt from Paul Marshall, Hungarian Conservative
(Budapest), November 7, 2022.
