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Pillar

The Human Person

The first pillar of a decent society is respect for the human person, which recognizes that all individual human beings have dignity simply because of the kind of being they are: animals whose rational faculties allow them to know, love, reason, and communicate. It also recognizes that human beings are persons, members of the human family who flourish in a community that respects their fundamental rights and who long to discover transcendent truths about the nature of reality.

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Debates about whether Islam is inherently violent obscure more than they clarify because they misconceive the nature of religious authority in Islam. A lack of central authority lies at the heart of the difficulties facing Muslim reformers and explains why it is so difficult to disentangle violence from Islam.
By acknowledging the tragic reality of miscarriage and supporting those who grieve, we can build a culture of life and encourage our society to recognize the humanity of the unborn child.
Those of us blessed by the love of someone with an extra twenty-first chromosome look forward to October. October invites me, along with all other parents of children with Down Syndrome, to proclaim loudly that our children live lives worthy of life.
In her landmark 1971 paper, Judith Jarvis Thomson tried to defend abortion by appeal to norms of justification consistently applicable in a range of other cases. By contrast, the courts in and after Roe and Casey have treated the right to abortion as an unquestionable legal principle. This inverted approach is doomed to fail as it continues to reveal the anomalous character of abortion rights.
There is dignity in living and dignity in dying, because the concept of “dignity” is inseparable from our humanity. Even when our autonomy is lost, all people can still undergo suffering and death with a noble and dignified serenity.
Advocates for “death with dignity” seem to deny reality, since no human death is truly dignified—even if a person chooses or accepts it. Instead, what ultimately gives death dignity is the kind of life that preceded it.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta was canonized yesterday by Pope Francis. In 1994, she submitted an amicus brief, filed by her counsel Robert P. George, pleading with the United States Supreme Court to reverse its decision in Roe v. Wade. The text of her brief appears below.
Is there a moral obligation for the US not to enact Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim travel into the US?
The war is far from over, but a recent battle in California shows that pluralism, religious liberty, and traditional values can be defended where there is a will to mobilize and resist.
A playbook exists for reversing the slide toward death on demand. It’s time to use Compassion & Choices’ tactics against it.
Like John C. Calhoun, who famously embraced slavery as a “positive good,” the abortion movement of 2016 has shifted from seeing abortion as a “necessary evil” to celebrating it as good for women and society.
Congress should pass the Conscience Protection Act to send a message to the entire nation that our freedom of speech and religious freedom are protected and valued.
The Governor and Attorney General of Texas should obey the law, not the Supreme Court’s ambiguous abstractions. They should continue to secure the fundamental liberty of vulnerable Texans and make the abortion industry assert its super-claim-rights in court.
The Obama administration not only enforces but unilaterally expands some civil rights laws, such as when “sex” became “gender identity” in Title IX. Yet it promotes exceptions, loopholes, and countervailing arguments for other civil rights protections, such as conscience rights for those who oppose abortion.
There comes a time where gross disregard for human life and for our constitutional order should stir us from docile obedience and impel us to resistance.
The Supreme Court’s latest abortion decision is a significant setback for women and the unborn.
True religious freedom demands that we allow space in our society for difference, even when we don’t understand the reasons for a particular religious practice. Having to live without fully understanding others comes with the territory of genuine diversity.
A new film in which the main character commits suicide sends the message that “me and my needs come before you and your needs.” It is a tale of autonomy run amok—a result of the radical and ludicrous idea that we do not live connected to, dependent on, or in relationship with others.
The bitterness of competing narratives in today’s culture wars can give the impression that no agreement is possible between opposing sides. Margaret Somerville proposes a way forward through a shared ethic of wonder at the mystery and dignity of human life.
Despite arguments to the contrary, pro-lifers simply cannot support federal funding for Planned Parenthood. If the price for a seat at the public justice table is taxpayer funding for the nation’s leading abortion provider, it may be time to think about another table.
The law is a teacher. By legalizing surrogacy, Louisiana legislators are teaching people that it is morally permissible to use people as means to an end.
If a non-teleological process produced human morality, then how can we find a measuring rod for morality outside of nature that allows us to prefer “moral” behaviors to “immoral” behaviors?
Parents of very young, very sick children deserve the right to make medical decisions for their sons and daughters, no matter how difficult those decisions may be.
A play in three acts, each consisting of a meeting between the CEO of a religious charity and the agent representing her health insurance company.

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