Of Elephants and Men

  In June 1215, English barons cornered King John on the fields of Runnymede and forced him to sign the Great Charter—Magna Carta—among whose guarantees was the right to habeas corpus: “No man shall be arrested or imprisoned . . . except by the lawful judgment of his peers...
Read More →

TWO BOOK REVIEWS: Help Her to Be Brave and What the Bible Says About Abortion

    HELP HER TO BE BRAVE: DISCOVER YOUR PLACE IN THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT Amy Ford (Chicago: Moody Publishers, paperback, 208 pp., 2021, $14.99. Also available as e-book; on-line publisher discounts.) & WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT ABORTION, EUTHANASIA AND END-OF-LIFE...
Read More →

TWO BOOK REVIEWS: Survivor and Speaking for the Unborn

  SURVIVOR: AN ABORTION SURVIVOR’S SURPRISING STORY OF CHOOSING FORGIVENESS AND FINDING REDEMPTION Claire Culwell with Lois and Steve Rabey (Waterbrook/Multnomah Books, 2021, paperback, 189 pages, $17.00, ebook, $11.99) SPEAKING FOR THE UNBORN: 30-SECOND PRO-LIFE REBUTTALS...
Read More →

Fatherhood in a Post-Roe America

  Father’s Day is June 19. A decision by the Supreme Court regarding the fate of Roe v. Wade is likely any day now. The conjunction of these two events is important. It ought to initiate a national conversation about fathers and their unborn children. Roe is just the tip of...
Read More →

DISPUTES IN BIOETHICS: ABORTION, EUTHANASIA, AND OTHER CONTROVERSIES

  Christopher Kaczor (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020, paperback, 236 pages, $30) Reviewed by John Grondelski ______________________________________ In his enlightening book Disputes in Bioethics: Abortion, Euthanasia, and Other Controversies, Christopher Kaczor,...
Read More →

KILLING IN THE NAME OF HEALING: CONFRONTING MEDICAL HOLOCAUSTS PAST AND PRESENT

  KILLING IN THE NAME OF HEALING: CONFRONTING MEDICAL HOLOCAUSTS PAST AND PRESENT William C. Brennan (Franciscan University Press, 2021, hardcover, 299 pages, $40) Reviewed by John M. Grondelski _______________________________________________________________________ The 75th...
Read More →

BOOKNOTES: BROKEN BONDS: SURROGATE MOTHERS SPEAK OUT

Broken Bonds provides the accounts of sixteen women from nine countries who experienced surrogate motherhood. None of them sound like happy, altruistic “angels” (a common term for mothers used in pro-surrogacy propaganda), smiling as they selflessly turn over the baby they’ve...
Read More →
Photo 118517385 / Newborn © Jacek Sopotnicki | Dreamstime.com

Where Are the Babies?

American birth rates plummeted between 2009 and 2019. Lyman Stone offers us a concerning metric to measure the loss: “missing births.” If, he asks, birth rates had remained throughout the following decade what they were in 2008, “how many more babies would have been born?” The...
Read More →

Dickens on Life, Death, and Christmas

A literary critic whose name I do not now recall observed that Charles Dickens’s greatness as an author lies in the fact that he could put death into a Christmas story . . . and get away with it. Who, after all, is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come but the Grim Reaper? Only the...
Read More →

A Prophetic Editorial: Fifty Years since “A New Ethic for Medicine and Society”

  This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of “A New Ethic for Medicine and Society,”  a remarkably foresighted editorial published in the September 1970 issue of the professional journal California Medicine.  The editorial, which has been reprinted many times over the...
Read More →