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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.

It Takes a Swarm to Raise a Village

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Public Discourse

Muslim “Leaders” Adding Fuel to the Swiss-Minaret-Ban Fire

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It’s hard to credibly demand religious liberty when one is in the minority if one refuses to grant it when one is the majority. The principle “do unto others as you would have done unto you” should be a guiding ideal for all sides in the Swiss minaret controversy.
Public Discourse

Bad Reason and the ‘Manhattan Declaration’

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A good deal of online commentary about a recent ecumenical statement misunderstands the nature of human reason.
Public Discourse

How to Stop the Next Detroit Bomber

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In response to the would-be Detroit bomber, Yemen wants more helicopters to counter terrorism. But there is no indication helicopters would have stopped him or that, over the long run, they will put an end to the activities of al-Qaeda enthusiasts. Counterterrorism efforts need to take hearts, minds, and wills seriously.
Public Discourse

Duty and Disability

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Having spent 20 years wrongly diagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state, Rom Houben reminds us that disabled persons are capable of many more substantive opportunities for human fulfillment than we are initially inclined to believe. But is bodily life just as such worth preserving? Can care-givers rightly remove hydration and nutrition?
Public Discourse

Economic Liberalism and its Discontents

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If we are to restore confidence in free markets, we need a robust explanation of their moral value.
Public Discourse

The Post-Nuclear Family

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It is no simple matter to care for aging parents. But in the face of an uncertain future, concrete steps can be taken to make an unusual option more attractive.
Public Discourse

The Conscientious Engagement of Yves Simon

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Yves Simon's fierce moral intelligence highlights the sad decay of our public deliberation, but his example also gives cause for hope.
Public Discourse

Philosophy and the Embryo

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Pragmatic and moral considerations should not be allowed to distort science, nor should they distract philosophy from its pursuit of truth.
Public Discourse
  • Islam

Who Defines What Islam Is?

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Many Muslims have been either silenced or ignored when it comes to their views of their own faith. As we grapple with the legacy of 9/11, we need to listen to these voices if we are to understand the religion they practice.
Public Discourse

Obama on the Value of Human Life: How About Some ‘Vigorous’ Debate?

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President Obama has called for vigorous debate on the abortion question. For that to happen, though, his own position must be clarified. The picture that emerges is not a flattering one.
Public Discourse

Judge Sotomayor and Abortion on Demand: A Tutorial

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Millions of Americans believe that states can prohibit abortion in the third trimester, yet current Supreme Court jurisprudence has manufactured a right to unfettered abortion right up to the time of the child’s birth. How did Americans become so confused on this issue and how did the Supreme Court end up where it has?
Public Discourse

The Embryo Troubles of Obama’s Top Doctor

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Many are pointing to Obama’s pick of an Evangelical to head the National Institutes of Health as a sign of the president's willingness to reach out to those with differing viewpoints. But his pick holds conflicted views about the human embryo and will oversee a department that, under new rules, is outsourcing the destruction of human life.
Public Discourse

What Does it Mean to Respect Islam?: The Witness of Soraya M.

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Healthy respect takes account of the diversity in Islam and focuses not on respecting an idea but on respecting the humanity of individuals. A new movie that opens in U.S. theaters today helps illustrate this precise point.
Public Discourse

Is the Abortion Debate Over?

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The philosophical debate about abortion has reached a welcome level of clarity. The pro-life movement must capitalize on recent gains in public policy and opinion by equipping their grass-roots supporters with winsome arguments and effective strategies to continue to cultivate a culture of life.
Public Discourse

Obama’s New Beginning in Cairo: Now He Needs One in Washington

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President Obama’s “New Beginning” speech in Cairo featured wise and strategically astute language regarding Muslims. Yet coverage of the event by the U.S. State Department office responsible for communication to foreign audiences undermined Obama’s message. Before more outreach to foreign audiences, the Obama White House needs to reach out to its own State Department.
Public Discourse

Obama and His Pro-Life Apologists

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Three months into President Obama’s first term, one of his most prominent pro-life opponents, Robert P. George, engaged in a discussion with one of his most prominent pro-life supporters, Douglas W. Kmiec. The article below is adopted from George's remarks, which called for candid speech on Obama's abortion record.
Public Discourse

Notre Dame and Obama’s Roe Problem

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President Obama’s calls for honest dialogue on the abortion issue can only get off the ground if both sides agree that abortion is a contestable issue. But if it is a contestable issue, it should be settled by democratic processes—not judicial fiat.
Public Discourse

Obama, Muslims, and Religious Freedom

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Muslims who favor religious freedom deserve to have their voices heard. One way President Obama could be respectful of and show his appreciation for Islam would be to nominate an Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom and support religious freedom in his administration’s foreign policy.
Public Discourse

Can Secularism Save the Islamic World?

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What the Muslim world needs is not Western-style secularization that stresses the privatization of religion, but a form of authentic faith at ease with modernity
Public Discourse

The Eugenicist Structure of U.S. Family-Planning Policy

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From the Clinton Administration to Nancy Pelosi, American family-planning policy continues to preserve the eugenicist principle that America would be better off if poor children were never conceived. In fact, Clinton tied Medicaid funding to state promises that it would save the government money in the long run by “averting births” of children who were likely to be a drain on the welfare system. But there is an alternative. The third in a three-part series.
Public Discourse

The Racist Origins of U.S. Family-Planning Policy

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The senators who originally designed our family planning policies believed that the mostly black welfare population was incurably lazy, promiscuous, intellectually substandard, and a burden on public schools, and, moreover, that they probably would remain so indefinitely. Birth control, therefore, was in their eyes a way to reduce the number of these undesirable people. This article is the second installment in a three-part series.
Public Discourse

Forcing the Poor to Stop Having Children

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Nancy Pelosi’s widely reported comments on family planning were simply a restatement of a view shared by both political parties. This article is the first installment of a three-part series on the racist origin and eugenicist structure of U.S. family-planning policy.
Public Discourse

Torture: What it is, and Why it is Wrong

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The recent publication of the Torture Memos and of the International Red Cross report on the treatment of high-level detainees in the aftermath of 9/11 has returned to national prominence the discussion of the morality of torture and “enhanced interrogation” techniques. It is important to be clear, as a moral matter, on what boundaries should be accepted in interrogation of human beings; a responsible and non-politicized discussion is essential on this difficult issue.
Public Discourse

Cognitive Enhancing Drugs

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Recent calls for the widespread use of cognitive enhancements are based on a narrow, mechanistic view of what it means to be human.
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