So, Cardinal Prevost...now Pope Leo XIV...is a deeply committed pro-life Catholic. A short thread with five examples:

On the Dignity of All Life (Inferred from Synodality Comments, 2023):
"The Church must walk with all people, especially the most vulnerable, ensuring their dignity is upheld from the womb to the end of life, as this is the heart of Christ’s mission." On Pastoral Care for the Elderly (Speech to Peruvian Bishops, 2020):
"Our elderly are not to be discarded but cherished as bearers of wisdom and faith, deserving the same love and protection as the youngest among us."

For years I've explained how (some) pro-choice Catholic Democrats could avoid this judgment. But now one must admit Biden is so far out of step on a matter of mass violence directed against the most vulnerable he is clearly and publicly out of communion. apnews.com/article/aborti… This can no longer be described as a prudential judgement about how best to support prenatal children, their mothers, and other populations in light of complex political realities. It is a straight-up, no chaser pro-abortion position. An aggressively pro-abortion position.

So, @PoppyNoor and the @Guardian managed to do a story on what a pregnancy looks like (takeaway: "it doesn't look like what you think") and in the nine week photo, for instance, they *removed the baby from the photo.* This is not a joke! Amniotic sac only. theguardian.com/world/2022/oct… This story should be flagged for misinformation everywhere. It is of course true that at the very, very early stages the baby is often quite small and difficult to see (of course this looms large: goodreads.com/quotes/22613-a…), but here is what 10 week-old prenatal child looks like.

.@PeterSinger is 100% right about the following: If you deny that this prenatal child is a member of moral community, then you must deny that neonatal children are members of the moral community. The reproductive right to abortion implies the reproductive right to infanticide. Significantly, this was the view of the ancient pagans who practiced both abortion and infanticide in order to control reproduction. The ancient Christians who lived among them opposed the culture of both abortion and infanticide in defending radical human dignity and equality.

Seeing surprise and even anger from fellow pro-lifers about the results from Kansas last night. On the one hand, this reaction makes good sense. Kansans are very pro-life and in order for their views to be reflected in law the referendum had to pass. It failed, 59-41.

THREAD Now Kanas will become a bastion of abortion extremism, including welcoming abortion tourism from other states. Virtually no resident wants that. Furthermore, didn't Louisiana just pass a similar measure, 61 percent to 38 percent? cnn.com/2020/11/04/pol… This all seems strange.

So, yeah, we're all kind of jaded and cynical about the abortion debate, right? So many folks will say almost anything to advance their narrative. But the Washington Post publishing the story of a Black pro-life activist **as if she supports abortion rights** takes the cake. 1/

https://twitter.com/mvenk82/status/1551211127098449925

Elaine Riddick was the victim of sexual violence and of the violence of forced sterilization. No wonder she became a passionate pro-life activist, telling her story at anti-abortion events all over the country. She hates the violence of abortion too. indyweek.com/news/eugenics-… 2/

Some professional news! Yesterday I accepted a tenured, full professor position with the @Creighton School of Medicine! My family and I will stay in NJ, but I’ll fly about once a month to teach ethics to M1 and M2 students in their brand-new medical school in Phoenix, Arizona. 1/ Creighton SOM was invited, in particular, by the underserved Catholic Latino community there to build this new institution. catholicsun.org/2021/09/14/cre… In addition to those courses, I’ll teach a few online as well, for a total of 80 percent of my time. 2/

Really important thread here; one which gets to the heart of an issue which has been at the center for my research of late: what is actually going on with the dead donor rule and transplantation of vital organs. I think what this thread reveals is the dead donor rule... 1/

https://twitter.com/WesElyMD/status/1508779001002790914

...really isn't followed. And, in related story, the fiction that a living human body with a (mostly?) dead brain is an actually dead human being is imploding. As Dr. Ely suggests, the demand for organs trumps other considerations. (And I say this as an organ donor myself!) 2/

Think the case for masking kids at schools is a no-brainer? I encourage you read this from @NYMag which came out last week Friday: nymag.com/intelligencer/… Full of very important insights...especially if you care more about facts than about ideology. Some quotes in thread below. "Distancing, hybrid models, classroom barriers, HEPA filters, and, most notably, requiring student masking were each found to not have a statistically significant benefit. In other words, these measures could not be said to be effective."

Remember @emmaogreen's (deeply disturbing) story about a Catholic nurse with a longstanding objection (which was recorded with her Medical Center) to participating in abortion who was tricked into participating in one? theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

Well, there's new developments. 1/ Despite all the steps the nurse took, she was scheduled for what she was told was a procedure following a miscarriage...which was actually an elective abortion. According to the nurse, the attending physician said, “don’t hate me” once she became aware of how she was tricked. 2/

One thing my new book focuses on is how poorly secularized medicine understands catastrophic brain injuries relative to their ability to make aggressively authoritative pronouncements about them.

If you haven't been following the science, prepare to have your mind blown...

1/ Remember Terri Schiavo and "persistent vegetative state"? religious folks were offended by this phrase and largely choose to use other language. about two-decades later the secularized scientific community would change it from "persistent" to "chronic" 2/ pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31405394/

This past Friday, pro-lifers began reporting on doctors killing #MichaelHickson. To this point, it has only been picked up by pro-lifers and disability rights activists. That it has been ignored by major media and racial justice activists is a disgrace. 1/ lifenews.com/2020/06/26/doc… Michael got COVID-19 and was put in the hospital. A paraplegic who could not walk or easily talk, he clearly interacted with his family, laughing at jokes and enjoying songs. Due to complex disagreements over his care, however, medical decision-making was taken from his wife. 2/

moral and legal pressure now building in PA where state Attorney's General has opened up a criminal investigation into #NursingHomeDeaths pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/05/12/pen…

and class action lawsuits have begun wpxi.com/news/top-stori…

PA is only the first state to go; more will follow 1/ and are we surprised that PA health secretary, Rachel Levine, MD, made sure that her own mother was removed from a nursing home before she implemented her statewide policy of forcing other people's parents to be exposed to the virus in nursing homes? wjactv.com/news/local/cri… 2/

Glad to say, in light of #COVID19, many are #flatteningthecurve with social distancing, frequent hand washing, and other practices.

Though this is likely to reduce the rationing of hospital beds, ventilators, and provider hours...it is not likely to eradicate such rationing. 1/ My dissertation (which became the book below) acknowledged impossibility of not rationing in some sense. We have virtually unlimited care needs and limited resources. But because we rarely think about this reality...explicit rationing can be unsettling. 2/
amazon.com/Too-Expensive-…

Given the unfolding argument about banning porn (especially on the 'right'), I thought I'd do a little thread on it, especially since #ResistThrowawayCulture highlights the porn industry as a paradigmatic example of the kind of institution we must resist. amazon.com/Resisting-Thro… Those involved are radically reduced to mere products and then used as mere things. That's the whole point of porn; just ask the whistle-blowers. fightthenewdrug.org/3-male-porn-st…

But what's so pernicious are the social effects. Very little daylight between porn and hook-up cultures.

This story about @JohnBelforLA signing his state's just-passed heartbeat bill is rightly getting lots of attention. washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05… But, in many ways, it is getting the wrong kind of attention and this points to a major flaw in how abortion is covered in the US. 1/ Edwards is a strong pro-life Democrat; expanded Medicaid, increased education funding, instituted criminal justice reform.

More than 12 Dems voted for the heartbeat bill. Several are people of color...like @RepKJackson. This is mirrors a (local) trend religionnews.com/2019/05/10/the… 2/