The settings couldn’t be more different. One, Mukuru, a slum in the Kenyan capital city of Nairobi, home to some 10,000 living in wood and corrugated metal shacks, crowded together, with no running water, electricity, or sewage systems.
Category: Columns
Helping an aging parent from a distance
Q. I am becoming more and more concerned that my mom is not doing well.
She has lost many of her friends and when we speak I think there may be some depression going on.
I live on the West coast and can’t be there to actually see what is happening. What can I do? How do I get mom to accept help? (From daughter in San Francisco, Calif.)
A. Your concerns are very legitimate. Losses can be very hard to deal with especially as we get older and have fewer options to replace the loss.
Alzheimer’s and dementia
Q. I have heard people use the term dementia, and then others will say Alzheimer’s disease. What is the difference and how can I tell if my dad is developing either one of them? (From a son in Southern Wisconsin.)
This is a very common question and there is a lot of confusion about this, so I am glad you asked.
Dementia is used as more of a general term that describes some symptoms.
The symptoms included in dementia are forgetfulness, repeating words or statements, and loss of judgment, to name a few.
Tim Tebow and Christophobia
Two weeks into the NFL season, ESPN ran a Sunday morning special exploring why the third-string quarterback of the Denver Broncos, Tim Tebow, had become the most polarizing figure in American sports.
He has become more polarizing than trash-talking NBA behemoths; more polarizing than foul-mouthed Serena Williams; more polarizing than NFL all-stars who father numerous children by numerous women, all out of wedlock.
Why does Tebow, and Tebow alone, arouse such passions? Why is Tebow the one whom “comedians” say they would like to shoot?
Human beings are not commodities
The cornerstone of Catholic social teaching is that human life is sacred. As such the Catholic Conference evaluates any law, policy, or program in terms of its impact on the life and dignity of the human person.
Teaching on the economy
Catholic teaching on the economy reflects this emphasis on the human person. Pope John Paul II put it quite directly in his 1981 encyclical letter, Laborem exercens. He recalled that the error of early capitalism can be repeated wherever humans are treated as mere instruments or means of production and not as ends in themselves.
On medical decision-making
Each fall, as we observe October, Respect Life Month, we are reminded of our obligation to combat the relentless attacks on all innocent human life.
Our experience throughout this past spring and summer indicates that in addition to the tragic killing of our preborn brothers and sisters, assaults on vulnerable elderly, sick, and disabled people are definitely on the rise, especially here in Wisconsin.
Providing advice, advocacy
Pro-Life Wisconsin is being enlisted to provide more and more materials, speakers, advice, and direct advocacy regarding end-of-life and medical decisions.
The elderly are a blessing, not a burden
As the 20th century came to a close, the United Nations celebrated the International Year of Older Persons, heralding the vision of “A Society for All Ages.”
The first years of the new millennium have been anything but that, with the abandonment of frail seniors during natural disasters from New Orleans to Japan, the legalization of assisted suicide in several U.S. states and foreign countries, and political rhetoric that seems to consider the growing population of seniors merely as a drain on our health care system and the federal budget. Is this the society for all ages we envisioned in 1999?
Dangers of human stockpiling
A recent news report chronicled a Chinese woman named Huang Yijun. Sixty years ago, her unborn child died, but the pregnancy was never expelled from her body. Instead, her baby’s body slowly began to calcify inside her, becoming a crystallized, stone-like mass.
Such stone babies (known as lithopedions) are extremely rare. When Mrs. Huang was 92 years old, the baby was discovered in her abdomen and surgically removed.
This rare medical event prompts us to consider a thought experiment. Imagine a drug that could be injected into a child to crystallize him, but without killing him. The process would turn the child into a static mass for as many years as the parents wanted; another injection would reverse the process, and allow the child to wake up and continue growing.
Contraception mandate: engangers religious liberty, women’s health
In implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) now requires almost all private health plans to cover contraception and sterilization as “preventive services” for women.
It is deeply disturbing that at the very time when scientists and contraception advocates are beginning to acknowledge some of the dangers of artificial contraception, our government has chosen to make contraception coverage mandatory.
Hormonal contraception and STIs
This past July, a new study reported on at the International AIDS Society in Rome found that women in Africa who were taking hormonal contraception (i.e., oral contraception like the Pill and injectables like Depo-Provera) were not only twice as likely to contract the AIDS virus, but were also twice as likely to transmit HIV to their uninfected partners.
Contraception mandate: engangers religious liberty, women’s health
In implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) now requires almost all private health plans to cover contraception and sterilization as “preventive services” for women.
It is deeply disturbing that at the very time when scientists and contraception advocates are beginning to acknowledge some of the dangers of artificial contraception, our government has chosen to make contraception coverage mandatory.
Hormonal contraception and STIs
This past July, a new study reported on at the International AIDS Society in Rome found that women in Africa who were taking hormonal contraception (i.e., oral contraception like the Pill and injectables like Depo-Provera) were not only twice as likely to contract the AIDS virus, but were also twice as likely to transmit HIV to their uninfected partners.