St. Augustine’s Press

“The breath of Sutton’s analysis is vast. She draws on biological, medical, legal, and sociological information. The analysis also includes a review of Roman Catholic tradition concerning abortion and canonical penalties.” Kevin T. Fitzgerald, S.J., Theological Studies

Introduction. Two Case Studies. Techniques, Aims and Risks: Tests to promote the health of mother and baby. Non-invasive tests. Invasive tests. Tests to detect babies with disabilities and enable abortion. Invasive tests: mother only. Invasive tests: both mother and child. A specialist test with therapeutic and nontherapeutic potential. The Church’s Teaching. A Critical Examination of the Arguments in Favour of Selective Abortion: Parental pity. Burden to society and the family. Down’s Syndrome. Burdens for parents. Inconsistent treatment. Prenatal Diagnosis — Social and Psychological Aspects: Possible psychological consequences. Ethical and social implications of prenatal diagnosis. Eugenic mentality. Conclusion. Further Reading. Glossary.

Catholic teaching regarding human cloning is closely linked to the sanctity of life, the status of the embryo, and the meaning of sex and marriage. It addresses the tensions between the relief of suffering-which can be sought in good or bad ways-and respect for every human being. Anthony McCarthy sets out the scientific background to cloning, explains the Church's teaching, and examines secular arguments for and against human cloning.

Cooperation in evil or wrongdoing is one of the most perplexing areas in bioethics, both for those working in the field and those seeking their advice.  The papers collected in this book are written by philosophers, theologians and lawyers who have studied these problems and/or by those who have faced these problems in their own work in law, healthcare and research, and political campaigning. The volume includes both general treatments of the subject of cooperation and conscientious objection, and more specific treatments of topics such as voting to improve unjust laws, research on fetal/embryonic cells, and care of suicidal patients.  The book is offered as a guide to a field which is both of academic interest and of personal concern to those who face cooperation problems in their own lives and work.

A gathering of some of the best scholars in traditional Catholic thinking to discuss the culture of life: Luke Gormally, “Introduction”; Cardinal Thomas J Winning, “The Great Jubilee and the Culture of Life, the Culture of Death”; John Finnis, “Secularism, the Root of the Culture of Death”; Katerina Fedoryka Cuddeback, “The Global Lineaments of the Culture of Death”; Dermot Fenlon, “Dechristianizing England: Newman, Mill and the Stationary State”; Robert George, “The Political Theory of the Culture of Death”; Livio Melina, “Faith in the Incarnation, Death and Resurrection of Jesus and the Culture of Life”; Carlo Lorenzo Rossetti, “What Does It Mean for a Christian to Be ‘Against the world but for the World’?”; Bishop Donal Murray, “The Church as a Community of Hope in the Face of the Culture of Death”; Archbishop George Pell, “The Role of the Bishop in Promoting the Gospel of Life”; Richard Hogan, “The Role of the Priest in Promoting the Culture of Life”; Laura Garcia, “The Family and the Culture of Life”; Anthony Fisher, OP, “Some Problems of Conscience in Bio-Lawmaking”; Jorge Garcia, “The Forms and Limits of the Private Defence of Innocent Human.”

During his second stint as regent master of theology at the University of Paris in 1269–1272, Thomas Aquinas fulfilled the threefold magisterial task: legere, disputare, praedicare – to lecture, to dispute, to preach. On Virtues in General and On the Cardinal Virtues are two series of disputed questions which date from this period. In them Thomas, at the height of his powers and under the pressure of the raging dispute over Aristotle, discusses the central feature of his moral doctrine, virtue. During the same period he was composing his commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and completing the moral part of the Summa Theologiae.

“This book goes a considerable way towards filling a gap which Christian nurses may become aware of when studying ethics i.e. a clear exposition of a Christian perspective on ethical issues affecting nursing.” – Dorothy Whyte, Ethics and Medicine