New translations of texts used for Eucharistic adoration to go into effect in December

Washington D.C., Apr 2, 2019 / 02:07 pm (CNA).- A new scientific study has found significant differences in the ways that the brains of male and female fetuses function prior to birth.

Researchers conducted MRI scans on human fetuses in the womb, studying the functional connectivity (FC), or the neurological connections between different areas of the brain, for both males and females. They found connections between parts of the female brains that were almost nonexistent in the male brains.

“The present study demonstrates for the first time that development of fetal brain FC varies with sex,” the researchers wrote, concluding that the fetal brain networks they observed likely lay the “building blocks” for brain development throughout rest of the baby’s life.

Dr. Leonard Sax, a family physician and author of the 2005 book “Why Gender Matters,” told CNA that the fact that there is a difference in brain function at all— at a stage of development when a baby has not yet been exposed to any societal influences— is significant in itself.

“I think the importance of this research is that it shows that the brain of a baby girl in her mother’s womb prior to birth is significantly different than the brain of a baby boy in the mother’s womb at the same stage prior to birth,” Sax told CNA.

“Exactly what those differences signify is controversial,” he noted.

Sax wrote a March 27 article for Psychology Today summarizing the study’s findings, in which he asked why the study had received relatively little media coverage. In some parts of the brain, the differences between males and females were “truly amazing,” he wrote.

“The human brain is gendered prior to birth. That may be politically incorrect, but it is an empirical reality,” Sax stated.

“Male and female are of God. The are hardwired, they are innate.”

He cautioned that it is not yet clear to neuroscientists what exactly the gender differences in brain function might mean, in terms of how activity in the brain relates to human emotion and experience.

“How does thinking happen? How does the brain mediate the process of thought or feeling? We don’t know the answers to those questions,” Sax said.

“In my article, I make no attempt to claim what that [brain function] difference signifies, because neuroscientists don’t know.”

He said while there are “plausible” interpretations that can be made based on the data, the researchers themselves “make no attempt to guess at the significance of their own findings.”

“The claim I’m making is girls and boys are different— that image strongly supports that claim,” he said.

Sax noted in his Psychology Today article that academics such as Judith Butler have pioneered popular theories that “male” and “female” are merely social constructs.

“The category of ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ are meaningful categories, they’re not a mere performance or a social construction as Judith Butler would have us believe. And they are clearly meaningful and real prior to birth,” he said.

Sax also pointed out that The New York Times published an op-ed April 1 in which Dr. Carol Hay, a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, endorses Butler’s understanding of gender, calling gender “fundamentally a performance” based on and learned from social systems.

Sax posited that the author is unaware of “research showing that ‘male and female’ are present in the human brain prior to birth.”

“I wouldn’t say that she is lying, I would say that she is unaware of the relevant research,” he clarified.

CNA reached out to Hay for a reply. She told CNA in an interview that when it comes to gender, she tends “to be pretty critical of the science, because I think it’s often motivated by a particular political agenda, as all science is motivated by a particular political agenda.”

Despite this, Hay said that in her view, even if science can prove that there are innate biological differences in the male and female brains, “I’m not sure that would tell us anything about why boys and girls end up acting completely differently.”

“The question is whether those brain differences— if they do exist— the question is whether they then actually translate into the kind of gender differences that we’re used to associating with men and women and boys and girls,” she argued.

Sax, however, maintained that the data is meaningful, showing a concrete difference in brain function between males and females, even if it is not yet clear what that signifies.

“That claim that gender is meaningless, or gender as merely a ‘performance’ isn’t a true statement. It’s a false statement,” he said.

[…]

Vancouver, Canada, Feb 28, 2020 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- A hospice in Canada has lost its funding and is being forced to close after refusing to offer and perform medically assisted suicides.

The Irene Thomas Hospice in Delta, British Columbia, will lose $1.5 million in funding and will no longer be permitted to operate as a hospice as of February 25, 2021. Fraser Health Authority, one of the six public health care authorities in the province, announced on Tuesday that it would be ending its relationship with the hospice over its refusal to provide medically assisted deaths to its patients. 

Per Fraser Health’s contract with the Delta Hospice Society, which administers the Irene Thomas Hospice, a one-year notice had to be provided before funding could be withdrawn without cause.

“We have made every effort to support the board to come into compliance and they have been clear that they have no intention to,” said British Columbia Health Minister Adrian Dix in a statement.

Dix said that the decision to pull funding was taken “reluctantly,” and that “when the role of the Delta Hospice Society concludes, patients in publicly funded hospice care will again be able to fully access their medical rights.”

A press release from Delta Hospice said that while it is not affiliated with a religion, the board of the Delta Hospice Society is opposed to medically assisted death on moral and philosophical grounds. 

“Delta Hospice officials were shocked and outraged this week by the Fraser Health Authority’s blatant move to cut off all discussions and close the facility because it wants the hospice to provide MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) at every facility,” said the statement. 

“The Irene Thomas Hospice is dedicated to allowing patients access to expert symptom management for physical, emotional and spiritual distress. It provides comfort, meaning dignity and hope as one dies a natural death.” 

In September 2016, about three months after medically assissted suicide became legal in Canada, Fraser Health introduced a new policy which required all hospices receiving more than 50% of provincial funding for their beds to offer the procedure to their residents. The hospice receives $1.4 million of its $3 million operating budget from the Fraser Health Authority, and Fraser Health funds virtually all of the beds at Irene Thomas Hospice. 

Angelina Ireland, president of the Delta Hospice Society, said in the press release that Fraser Health ignored her request to lower the amount of funding to below the 50% threshold, and also forbade the hospice from finding another partner to work with. 

After the contract with Fraser Health ends, the public health authority intends to take over the buildings that currently compose the Irene Thomas Hospital and bring in medically assisted dying. 

“By refusing to allow us to find another partner, [Fraser Health is] basically forcing us to be in default of our lease–because in order to have our lease, we have to be a hospice,” Ireland said. 

“They feel that they can just come in and seize our assets.” 

Ireland told CNA that although the facilities are on land that is leased from the government, the buildings were constructed using donations from the community of Delta.

“We built this facility,” she said. “We built that 10 years ago, and we put $9 million into that of privately-raised money from donations.” 

“This didn’t come from the taxpayer. This came from private people.” 

The Delta Hospice Society wishes to provide patients with a peaceful natural death, not actively end patients’ lives, Ireland explained to CNA. 

“[The hospice] worked really hard to have the people to trust us that when they come to hospice they will not be killed,” she said. “We will take care of them, they will take care of their families. And now basically the government has said that any hospice that does not provide euthanasia, it’s not allowed to exist.”

Ireland called this a “direct attack” on the medical specialty of palliative care. 

Faith-based healthcare organizations, as well as medical professionals opposed to MAiD, are not required to offer medically assisted suicide to patients in Canada. Doctors, however, must refer patients seeking an “assisted death” to a healthcare provider who is willing to euthanize them. 

Assisted dying is readily available at Delta Hospital, which is a one-minute drive from the Irene Thomas Hospice.

[…]

null / Alliance for Catholic Education

Washington D.C., Aug 27, 2021 / 16:08 pm (CNA).
The diocese of Cleveland announced this week that it will partner with the University of Notre Dame to reinvigorate two diocesan schools. The Notre Dame … […]