"Denying the possibility of conversion is to deny the possibility of grace"

Here is a wonderful guest opinion on the Washington Post/Newsweek site by Dr. William Blazek, a Jesuit scholastic and physician.

...A further note on killing the other person: As a practicing physician licensed to care for pregnant women, I believe that abortions kill a living human being in the earliest stages of development. The moral question at hand is not if we are killing; it is whether the victims have any claims as persons or not. While the U.S. legal balance is at present skewed towards the denial of rights for the unborn, Catholics and many Evangelical Christians argue that both the mother and the unborn have rights. On a spiritual level, a woman seeking an abortion should recognize that exercising her “choice” will kill a vulnerable and defenseless human being. There is no doubt about this. There is also no doubt that an action can be legal and at the same time be wrong.

Final point, we kill the Church when, in ignorance, we hold it up to ridicule. Last Spring, I asked several medical students in a seminar whether they rejected Catholic teachings regarding reproduction and artificial contraception. Several raised their hands. I prompted them to articulate the position and to give their critique of it. Conversation languished for some while. None in that group of graduating physicians had an answer, yet these well-educated role models were willing to publicly disagree with an argument they could not explain. At a recent Christmas party, a gentlemen identifying himself as a Catholic biologist was railing for research that would result in the death of frozen human embryos. He justified the exploitation, “because they are just sitting there.” I advised him that the Church’s reverence for the protected status of a human person is not based on level of activity but on an intrinsic dignity. He agreed to consider that.

Hat tip Karen Hall.