Presentation outlining Catholic teaching on various life issues, including abortion, contraception, assisted-suicide, etc.

1. Understanding the stakes
Stephen Frezza, Ph.D., C.S.D.P.
Gannon University

2. Human Life
Start of Life
• Abortion Contraception
• Artificial Insemination
End of Life
• Genocide Ethnic Cleansing
• Death Penalty Assisted Suicide

3.  Life is transferred…
Conception: moment
• when a sperm cell breaches
the ovum, or egg; zygote
• Initial stage of development
for human growth
• Genetically distinct from
mother and father

4.  Days after Last Menstrual
Period
• 18-21: the heart beats
• 32: eyes are formed
• 38: upper lip formed
• 40: brain waves are measurable
• 44: arms and legs formed
• 48: beginnings of all internal
structures present; child moves
• 56: embryo now called a fetus
• 63: sucking thumb, teeth forming
• 84-160: cries, feels pain

5. 13 to less than 28 weeks
• 13 - 3 in. & ½ oz., reflexes active
• 14 - fingerprints present
• 15 - grasp, grimace, frown, squint
• 16 - 6 in. & 6 oz., somersaults,
mother feels movement
• 17 - hiccups, plays with umbilical
cord
• 18 - hair and eyebrows growing
• 20 - recognizes mother’s voice
• 22 - responds to stories, music
• 24 - 1 lb., 85% survival rate
• 26 - responds to light, 1.5 to 2 lbs.

6.  28 weeks to Delivery
• 28 - 2 lbs. & practicing
breathing
• 30 - growing rapidly, sleeps
90% of the time, has dreams
• 32 - urinates, 4 lbs.
• 34 - 5 lbs. 19.5 in, head into
pelvis
• 36 - 99% survival
• 38 - 1,000 times original size
• 40 - Birth - 7.5 lbs average
weight.

7. “The transmission of human life is a most
serious role in which married people
collaborate freely and responsibly with God
the Creator. It has always been a source of
great joy to them, even though it sometimes
entails many difficulties and hardships.”
Pope Paul VI

8. Why do we care?
• Religious Reasons
• Personal Reasons
• Political Reasons
• Social Reasons

9. Who’s a Human Anyway?
• Where we are?
• When we are?
• Genetics?
• How to distinguish?
• Who should decide?

10. “We no longer agree about the content of
dignity, because we no longer share ... a
'vision of what it means to be human'."
Diana Schaub, Political Scientist

11.  Because one is human
 Status mode
Comes with being a human
being

12.  Depends on the circumstances
 Conferred by others and can be taken away
 Depends on what one can or cannot do
Comes with being able
to perform in a certain
way and not to perform
in other ways

13. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Declaration of Independence, 1776

14. Human life begins at conception
• Unless… We don’t believe…
• Most science…
• Most religions…
 Civil Right
• The right to be born
 Challenges:
• Contraception
• Abortion
• In Vitro Fertilization

15. Abortion is the #1 moral issue of our time.
 It has impacted and will impact your life in
one way or another – family, friends,
acquaintances.
• Millions of people – 43% of US Women
• Economy

16. Inalienable rights
• Life
• Liberty
• Pursuit of happiness =
property
Rights in Conflict
• Mother’s liberty versus
the child’s life
How to resolve rights
conflicts?

17.  Is it [birth control] an abortion?
Definitely not. An abortion kills the life of a
baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to
your life and health. It may make you sterile
so that when you want a child you cannot
have it. Birth control merely postpones the
beginning of life.
Planned Parenthood Advertisement
1964

18.  Children are a gift (Ps. 128)
 Each person is made in God’s
image (Gen. 1:27)
 ‘Yeled’ - the Hebrew word for one
borne or born – the unborn
 Job the same person before he
was born (Job 10:8-12)
 Jeremiah - known in the womb
(Jer. 1:5)

19. • The Greek – βρεϕος (Brěphŏs) Preborn John recognizes
Jesus shortly after his conception (Luke 1:41)
• Child sacrifice is condemned (Lev. 18:21, 20:1-5, Dt.
12:31)
• Punishment for
someone who causes
a miscarriage
intentionally (Ex.
21:22-25)

20. “The fundamental human right, the
presupposition of every other right, is
the right to life itself. This is true of life
from the moment of conception until its
natural end. Abortion consequently,
cannot be a human right – it is the very
opposite. It is a deep wound in society.”
Pope Benedict XVI

21. “And if we accept that a
mother can kill even her
own child, how can
we tell other people not to
kill one another?”
Blessed Mother Teresa of
Calcutta

22. Sterilization
• Vasectomy & tubal ligation
 Intra-Uterine Device (IUD)
Hormonal Contraceptives
• Oral Pills, patches, vaginal rings, injections
Barrier Methods
• Condoms, Diaphragms contraceptive sponge
Natural Family Planning

23.  Government policies which attempt to force
people to undergo surgical sterilization
 Eugenic, Social, Punitive reasons; International
funding
 South Africa
 Canada
 United States
 Nazi Germany
 China
 India
 Peru
 Russia
 Sweden
 Puerto Rico

24. Moral Evil
• Deliberate violation of the design God built into the
human race (Natural Law)
• Contrary to Scripture (Gen. 38:8–10), Apostolic
Tradition, Early Reformers, Church teaching
Catholic Moral Teaching
• Humane Vitae 1968
 Illegal under Obama Care

25.  Infidelity and moral decline
Lost Respect for Women
Abuse of Power
Unlimited Dominion

26. “I would now like to say a special word to women
who have had an abortion. The Church is aware of
the many factors which may have influenced your
decision, and she does not doubt that in many
cases it was a painful and even shattering decision.
The wound in your heart may not yet have healed.
Certainly what happened was and remains terribly
wrong. But do not give in to discouragement and do
not lose hope. ”
Pope John Paul II

27. Process by which an egg is fertilized by
sperm outside the body
Used most for pregnancy for:
• Impotent male, using donor sperm
• Women with cervical issues
• Single woman without a male partner (sperm
donor)
• Female couples (sperm donor)
• Male couples (egg donor and surrogate mother)

28. Human life ends at natural death
• Unless… We kill
Civil Right
• The right to … die?
Challenges:
• Genocide/Ethnic Cleansing
• Assisted Suicide
• Death Penalty

29. Armenia: 1,000,000 killed 1915-1923
China (Mao): 58,000,000 killed 1949-1969
USSR (Stalin): 20,000,000 killed 1932-1939
Holocaust: 5,700,000 killed 1933-1945
Khmer Rouge: 1,600,000 killed 1975-1978
Bosnia: 250,000 killed 1992-1995
Rwanda: 1,000,000 killed 1994
Somalia: 300,000 killed 1991-present
Darfur: ≥450,000 killed 2003-present

30.  Systematic forced removal of ethnic or religious
groups from a given territory
 Intent of creating a territory inhabited by people
of a homogeneous or pure ethnicity, religion,
culture, and history

31. Euthanasia
• direct killing of a person, usually by injecting a
lethal substance
• legal in the Netherlands (no consent) legal in
Belgium and Luxembourg
Assisted suicide
• one person providing the means and instructions
to help another person commit suicide

32.  Executions are expensive
• California spent ≥$4 billion on capital punishment since 1978
• Capital trials are 20 times more expensive
 Capital punishment does not deter crime
 Innocent people convicted and executed
• Since 1978, 142 men and women have been released from
Death Row
 Race plays a role in determining who dies
• 82% of cases, race of the victim was found to influence the
likelihood of receiving the death penalty
 The death penalty is applied at random.
• 22,000 capital crimes  ~100 people sentenced to death
 Goes against many religions