This small volume is designed to provoke thought about key question in modern research ethics. The result of a three-year collaboration between the nation’s two leading Catholic institutions devoted to medical ethics, The Catholic Medical Association and The National Catholic Bioethics Center, A Catholic Guide to Ethical Clinical Research attempts to resolve a series of real-life cases in research ethics by applying four key principles of the moral life, namely, truth, respect for life, the integrity of persons, and the conjoined ideas of generosity and justice. After a description of these principles, the authors turn to a remarkably wide range of cases on such diverse topics as informed consent, non-directed research, embryonic stem cells, in vitro fertilization, contraception, genetic modification, performance-enhancement, the selection of drugs for development, studies on poor or underprivileged populations, off-label use, and many other common cases in research ethics. The principles presented are true and certain, but the cases represent probable opinions. While the authors are certainly convinced of the merits of their own position, they resolve these cases in a manner that is designed to provoke the thoughtful reaction of the reader and so generate discussion. The main purpose of the volume is to show how principles should be applied to particular cases, thus providing a clinic in moral reasoning. To see and understand how the principles are applied in these particular cases should assist the reader in seeing how the same could be applied in other and perhaps very dissimilar cases. The opinions offered are the best-informed and most orthodox that could be expected from any assembly of Catholic scholars. Clinical research is a vitally important field of medicine that poses many moral challenges for the conscientious Catholic. This guide is a practical manual on how to think about the moral problems that confront the typical worker in the research setting today.

Despite the donation of billions of dollars in the fight against AIDS, the disease remains without cure and continues to spread. Why has so little progress been made? Using abundant evidence drawn from the latest scientific research, Hanley and de Irala show that the most effective method of combating the AIDS crisis is through sexual abstinence and fidelity in marriage. Where this strategy has been employed, especially in African countries such as Uganda, the decline in AIDS has been remarkable. Yet this common-sense strategy is rejected by the leading advocates for the victims of AIDS and is ignored by public policy experts, the media, and governments. The problem, the authors note, is an ideological bias against methods that rely on self-control and behavior change. Despite the effectiveness of these methods, they remain outcasts in the struggle to contain one of the world’s most devastating diseases.

Hanley and de Irala turn the tables on this defeatist mentality, arguing that ideological commitments need to be set aside in favor of efforts to change human behavior. The big-money interests that control the vast amount of wealth directed to AIDS prevention will not want to read this volume, but the evidence lies with the teachings of the Catholic Church, which has been counseling self-control, abstinence, and fidelity in marriage throughout the millennia. In his foreword, Harvard professor Edward Green reiterates, through his own experience, the success of this method.

This second edition has been completely revised and updated to reflect recent developments in magisterial teaching and scientific research. More than thirty authors, who are experts in their fields, examine moral action theory, key ethical principles, ethics committees, the embryo and fetus, contraception, reproductive technologies, difficult pregnancies, rape protocols, the determination of death, palliative care, nutrition and hydration, the persistent vegetative state, do-not-resuscitate orders, health care proxies, organ donation, vaccination refusals, genetic medicine, human experimentation, religious freedom, triage, cooperation with evil, state mandates, organizational ethics, and other topics.

From the Introduction:

“Any society’s moral order develops from its religion, its philosophy, its humane literature. The discipline of political economy, little understood until the latter half of the eighteenth century, is no independent creation: what economic views one holds must depend upon one’s apprehension of human nature. An economic system indifferent to morality will not long endure. For proof of these theses, read with attention Baldacchino’s succinct study, the work of a sound scholar endowed with a philosophical habit of mind.”–Russell Kirk

Joseph Baldacchino is the President of the National Humanities Institute and Editor of the academic journal Humanitas. For many years he was a Washington reporter and editor, in which capacity he addressed most aspects of national policy and politics but with particular emphasis on ethical and cultural issues. Baldacchino is editor of Educating for Virtue and, with others, the author of Irving Babbitt in Our Time. His present writing project, with others, is a constitutional history of the United States entitled Who We Are: The Story of America’s Constitution.

What They Are Saying:

“Baldacchino has raised many of the important issues on which we economists and historians of economic thought need to get busy”–William F. Campbell, Jr., Louisiana State University

This popular classroom text appears in a revised third edition with updates on nutrition and hydration, the persistent vegetative state, stem cell research, euthanasia, important court rulings, and many other topics critical to today’s health care profession.

The work is divided into three main sections: “Personhood,” which considers the use of faith and reason in the analysis of moral questions in medical decision-making and bioethics; “The Beginning of Human Life,” which examines the origin of the person, abortion, various reproductive technologies, and stem cell research; and “The End of Human Life,” which considers organ transplantation, suicide, decisions about prolonging life, and the determination of death. The appendices include a new chapter on eugenics, discussions of difficult end-of-life cases, the Declaration on Euthanasia, and the two Vatican instructions Donum vitae (1987) and Dignitas personae (2008). Each chapter has newly revised review questions that reiterate key points from the text and a set of discussion questions for generating student participation in classroom settings.

The text is written in an authoritative manner that is geared for the average student. Father Leies includes many interesting stories and analogies. This is a great textbook for the classroom setting. Each chapter includes review questions and discussion questions

Rev. John A. Leies is professor of theology and former President Emeritus of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, where he has been named as an Outstanding Faculty Member of the School of Arts and Social Sciences and the Graduate School.

What They Are Saying:

“Rarely has the need for formation in moral conscience been more urgent. The revised third edition of John Leies’s Handbook of Critical Life Issues provides students with an easy to understand guide to questions of conscience that bear directly on the practice and delivery of health care. If we are to arrest the growing epidemic of moral relativism in our culture, we must focus, as Leies does, on the dignity of the human person.  While retaining its previous emphasis on topics in beginning- and end-of-life issues, this general revision provides new information on eugenics and stem cell research, Catholic teaching on nutrition and hydration, revised discussion questions, expanded appendices, and updated references. The Handbook should be a required text in the moral formation of all students in the health care professions.” — Bro. Ignatius Perkins, OP, PhD, RN, Dean and Professor of Nursing, Aquinas College, Nashville

What should we do with the hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos held in fertility clinics around the world today? One solution would be adoption. Would such a course of action be moral? That is the question faced in this volume. The leading thinkers in Catholic bioethics divide into two opposing camps in a great debate over biotechnology, sexuality, marriage, and the right to life. The question is visceral for many. The idea of a woman taking the embryo of another into her womb provokes disdain among those who find this an infringement on the sanctity of marriage, while the proponents of embryo adoption argue that the sanctity of human life, and the innocence of the victim of this cruel fate, obliges us to take heroic action. The debate naturally touches on many other related topics, such as the widespread use of IVF, the willingness of some to see human embryos as tools for research, and the odd status of embryos preserved indefinitely in frozen storage. Embryos are indeed being adopted today, and successfully to term, but is it right to do so? With a foreword by Robert George, and some practical advice from the editors offered in an afterword by Rev. Thomas Berg, L.C. and Edward Furton, the core of the volume is a who’s who of Catholic scholars. The book originated from a forum assembled and sponsored by The Westchester Institute for Ethics & the Human Person.

Rev. Thomas Berg, L.C., Ph.D. is Adjunct Professor of Moral Philosophy at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome and founder and Executive Director of The Westchester Institute for Ethics & the Human Person in Thornwood, New York

Edward J. Furton, Ph.D., is an ethicist and Director of Publications at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

An appreciation for the papacy of John Paul II, this volume was produced shortly after his death on April 2, 2005. Two of his encyclicals come in for close examination, namely Evangelium vitae, the great essay on the good of human life, and Veritatis splendor, the Pope’s examination of act of moral judgment. Dr. John Haas situates the concerns of Evangelium vitae within the context of American culture, while Father Kevin Flannery, S.J., looks at from the perspective of contemporary debates in moral theology, Veritatis splendor providing two illustrative examples: the provision of nutrition and hydration to debilitated patients and the use of condoms by those infected with AIDs. The topic of food and water is examined by Richard Doerflinger, whose offers a perceptive set of reflections on John Paul II’s controversial statement on patients in a persistent vegetative state. Sarah-Vaughn Brakman takes a more comprehensive look at the writing of John Paul, offering an assessment of the key moral principles he advanced. Other topics of interest include presentations on stem cell research and cloning by Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, on surgical sterilization by Monsignor Russell Smith, and on the work of Dr. Thomas Hilgers, the father of NaProTechnology, a method of increasing the fertility of patients who are facing difficulties conceiving. Sr. Renee Mirkes, O.S.F., provides a wealth of detail about the techniques and effectiveness of this approach, one which is fully compatible with Catholic teaching on human sexuality. There are also entries on the corporate concerns of Catholic health care, including the problem of the uninsured and underinsured, by Anthony Tersigni, President and CEO of Ascension Health, how Catholic institutions can advance its vision of health care in a culture that rejects our vision of health care by Peter Cataldo, and a look at the challenges facing the Catholic provision of health care in Europe and Latin America. Additional essays discuss the very practical subjects of organ donation, vaccination refusals, and rape protocols.

Edward J. Furton, Ph.D., is an ethicist and Director of Publications at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Originally published as a doctoral dissertation, Daniel A. Cronin’s survey of moral theology on the topic of ordinary and extraordinary means remains the standard reference work on this critically important distinction for end-of-life decision-making. Cronin examines the major authors from the Catholic historical tradition on this important distinction, showing how the difference between “ordinary” and “extraordinary” has developed with the progress of medical science. Continuously cited since its first publication, this revised edition brings the classic text back into print.

As the largest non-profit provider of health care in the United States, the Catholic health care system often finds itself in conflict with a broader culture that does not appreciate the perennial values that gave birth to the idea of the hospital. These essays discuss the current challenges to Catholic identity and some of the moral questions that are at the root cause of that conflict. Edmund Pellegrino, M.D., addresses of the secularization of the health care profession and the gradual abandonment of the religious principles that once informed bioethics. John Haas reviews recent developments in reproductive technologies and how the Church has responded to some of the gross injustices inflicted on the embryo. Edward Furton and Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., engage in a debate over the morality of human embryo adoption, a presently unsettled question within the Church. Thomas Pitre, M.D., reviews the Church’s stance on the provision of nutrition and hydration, especially in light of John Paul II’s 2004 statement on “Life-Sustaining Treatments and the Vegetative State.” In an excellent presentation on the determination of death, Eugene Diamond, M.D. defends the brain-based or neurological criteria. Dan O’Brien and Christine Gorka take a technical and in-depth look at the controversies surrounding the use of vaccines that have a distant connection with abortion. T. Murphy Goodwin, M.D., examines the moral questions surrounding early induction of labor, especially in more difficult pregnancies. The problem of state mandates, which compel Catholic institutions to carry out practices forbidden by the faith, is discussed by Marie T. Hilliard, R.N. Helen M. Alvare looks at the personal and political consequences of pregnancy prevention after sexual assault. Three lectures are presented in Spanish on the topics of cloning, organ transplantation, and emergency contraception. Finally, an important closing address on the role of the magisterium in bioethics is offered by William Cardinal Levada, Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Edward J. Furton, Ph.D., is an ethicist and Director of Publications at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.