Wish I had speakers on the computer so I could hear this. I’m going to be facing some tough decisions if I get accepted into medical school. I recently heard that it is almost impossible to graduate without going against pro-life principles. Do I pretend to agree and give them the answers they want or do I speak truth? I’ve also heard that a majority of medical schools will not graduate students if they do not participate in an abortion. It is rumored that even Creighton Medical School, which is attached to a supposed Catholic University, does not support pro-life students. People tell me I’ll be a good doctor but I tell them that I will be fortunate to be hired anywhere because of my pro-life stance.

Thank you for this. I have been in the should I vacinate situation. I knew the vacine had come from the cells of an aborted little girl and I was trying to get a vacine based on monkey cells from Japan - but the NHS will not offer it and my daughter was already very ill. Every single hospital admission began with the question of her vacines.
I had checked the moral side of things before I let her have the vacine, but I was already under a lot of pressure and I still wonder if I caved when I shouldn’t have.
If by some fluke embryonic stem cells ever came up with a cure for my illness I don’t think I could take it.
There’s a bit of an irony when I hear people accuse Catholics of cannablism because of the Holy Eucharist, but who don’t have a problem with using the cells of murdered unborn babies.
It’s a strange world.

I noticed you focused your discussion around the use of vaccines produced in aborted fetal cell lines.  These are products that could potentially be created in non-life destroying ways, though they currently are not.  Additionally, the fetus presumably would have been aborted whether or not they could donate the remains to science.  Would your approach to the situation change if you were discussing a treatment using the implantation of cells derived from embryonic stem cells?  These cells would have come from an embryo that, though perhaps created for IVF rather than specifically for scientific purposes, was destroyed solely for scientific use.  Would you argue that such a treatment, like the above-mentioned vaccines, could be justifiable if it saved lives?  I believe it’s apparent that the use of SCNT to create patient-specific stem cells (which would involve the immoral creation and destruction of human life for each patient) would not be justifiable. However, how would the logical case for or against using an established hESC line differ from the justification of fetal cell line-derived vaccines?  I would suggest that, unlike the aborted fetus, this embryonic child would not have been killed if there had not been a demand for hESCR or hESC-derived treatment. Does this affect the moral calculus?  Are there other factors that I have not thought of? If you do find hESC implantation to be a moral choice in some situations, would it be immoral for a parent to decline that treatment for their child because they do not want to encourage hESC research?

Additionally, I encountered a situation with a public figure who presents himself as a champion of the pro-life (or at least the anti-abortion) cause, yet was publicly raising money for a charity that, despite scientific evidence to the contrary, still strongly champions embryonic stem cell research as the best hope for a cure for a particular disease—meaning it not only channels money to immoral research, but in doing so also deprives that money from adult stem cell or other research that is morally acceptable AND is already showing more promise than hESCR. He said that the relative that is afflicted with the particular disease has sworn never to use cures generated using hESCs. I found this response illogical because the money he was attempting to raise was therefore largely going to cures his loved one found immoral and would not be helped by, to the detriment of more promising research that could lead to a cure that his loved one could actually use. I provided him with two alternative charities that do not support hESC research, but he persisted in his fundraising campaign for the immoral charity. What would be his level of cooperation with evil, and would you consider this hypocrisy?

I noticed you focused your discussion around the use of vaccines produced in aborted fetal cell lines.  These are products that could potentially be created in non-life destroying ways, though they currently are not.  Additionally, the fetus presumably would have been aborted whether or not they could donate the remains to science.  Would your approach to the situation change if you were discussing a treatment using the implantation of cells derived from embryonic stem cells?  These cells would have come from an embryo that, though perhaps created for IVF rather than specifically for scientific purposes, was destroyed solely for scientific use.  Would you argue that such a treatment, like the above-mentioned vaccines, could be justifiable if it saved lives?  I believe it’s apparent that the use of SCNT to create patient-specific stem cells (which would involve the immoral creation and destruction of human life for each patient) would not be justifiable. However, how would the logical case for or against using an established hESC line differ from the justification of fetal cell line-derived vaccines?  I would suggest that, unlike the aborted fetus, this embryonic child would not have been killed if there had not been a demand for hESCR or hESC-derived treatment. Does this affect the moral calculus?  Are there other factors that I have not thought of? If you do find hESC implantation to be a moral choice in some situations, would it be immoral for a parent to decline that treatment for their child because they do not want to encourage hESC research?  Additionally, I encountered a situation with a public figure who presents himself as a champion of the pro-life (or at least the anti-abortion) cause, yet was publicly raising money for a charity that, despite scientific evidence to the contrary, still strongly champions embryonic stem cell research as the best hope for a cure for a particular disease—meaning it not only channels money to immoral research, but in doing so also deprives that money from adult stem cell or other research that is morally acceptable AND is already showing more promise than hESCR. He said that the relative that is afflicted with the particular disease has sworn never to use cures generated using hESCs. I found this response illogical because the money he was attempting to raise was therefore largely going to cures his loved one found immoral and would not be helped by, to the detriment of more promising research that could lead to a cure that his loved one could actually use. I provided him with two alternative charities that do not support hESC research, but he persisted in his fundraising campaign for the immoral charity. What would be his level of cooperation with evil, and would you consider this hypocrisy?

Having literally heard you (1st time) on Darrin’s difficult question, I’m joining your Secret Information Club after soon finishing “Part 3” on a complex-of-problems for which I see that you can truly help American Catholics in the informative way you handled Darrin’s dilemma. If unaided and misled as in 2008, diversely-educated Catholics face daunting tasks now and in 2012 of wrestling with “prudential judgments” over real or perceived dilemmas in a variety of American societal problems, especially re poverty and one’s personal decisions about whom to vote for, come November 2012.
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Of course we neither need nor wish you to tell us for whom to vote! Rather, you would invaluably aid the Republic by teaching us *process* for making prudential judgments and about certain moral-domain terms and concepts necessary for handling our dilemmas.  That will augment our education which can become a bit rusty, say, on the crucial difference between “proportionalism” and “proportionate reasons”, on the differences between THE Magisterium and less authoritative magisterial roles—and on how the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church could be wrongly used to guilt-trip Catholics who know too little.
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Otherwise, Mr. Akin, MANY Catholics in the coming *historic* presidential election will again become prey to activist lay ‘Catholics’ with agendas like that of self-advertized catholic-democrat Nicholas P. Cafardi who presented Archbishop Dolan of the NY Archdiocese with a 10-page letter with serious challenges. Its date is the very day of Abp Dolan’s USCCB Presidential Address in Baltimore, November 14.  In my respectful approach of Nov. 4, I spoke to the office of the General Secretariat and emailed that office a description of some main problems in their “Faithful Citizenship” (FC) document and especially in their widely read 2008 Bulletin Insert which Mr. Cafardi and similar Catholics used to help elect Barack Obama.
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When the USCCB link just below switches from “SORRY!Pagenotfound” to a *revised* FC national Bulletin-Insert for 2012 (not yet seen but I was told twice it is under development), then we might have much greater chance to win for God and country in 2012—depending on the adequacy and clarity in the “repairs” of three main problems.
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http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship/upload/Forming-Consciences-Faithful-Citizenship-bulletin-insert.pdf
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Meanwhile it is worrisome – so close to the start of election-year 2012 and *after* the Baltimore Meeting—that the search window on the “SORRY” page leads to that very same problem-causing 2008 Bulletin-Insert via the link just below. It is critical to suspend the misleading Insert until its revision for 2012 is made public which must be soon, given the stakes!
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http://www.faithfulcitizenship.org/resources/bulletin
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Returning to Mr. Cafardi, this lowly Catholic was pleased to see, on page 5 and 6 (link below) of his letter to Abp Dolan, that Mr. Cafardi, an Emeritus Dean and former Chair of a USCCB National Review Board is anxious to debate the morality of faith-poverty-politics! This is exactly what we need because the Catholic Church does not demand helping the poor *at unlimited cost* to responsible freedom in society. Mr. Cafardi takes the global perspective but simply can’t explain who would save us from losing the Republic if the Socialists gain global control.
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Mr. Akin, it seems like certain stars are aligned, so to speak: indeed audio presentations on key moral terms and concepts would be *so timely* to help us distributed debaters. Then Mr. Cafardi will not be able to snow so many Catholics this time around. Fortunately we have months to debate, crucial months to win in 2012 for God and country.
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He is apparently quite confident in debate-victory because the topic is sensitive—poverty—and the Compendium large and ripe for guilt-tripping the unaware by the incompetent!  And he likes too much the non-binding October NOTE of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. In his glee over the Note, he neglects to be complete enough about the Three Top Interdependent societal principles of subsidiarity, solidarity and the common good, properly understood. He takes useless refuge in certain statistics which don’t over-ride John Paul II’s cautioning each state against the “Social Assistance State” (regardless of what other states might or might not do).
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Finally we should learn from doctors who know how important it is to fight pre-cancers early enough. Systems that threaten to degrade to Socialism should be treated as “pre-cancers” to be removed before too late. Examination of Mr. Cafardi’s main 6-page letter suggests how he rationalized his support for Mr. Obama in 2008.
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Let the Debates Begin.
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http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/BishopsandPoverty.pdf

Time well spent listening to this!