Resources

Should Serodiscordant Couples be Permitted to Use Condoms?

By Brian Clowes, PhD / May 10, 2017 /

There are times when priests, ministers and pro-life activists encounter what might be called the “ultimate hard case” involving condoms. This is the situation where a husband and wife are serodiscordant; one is HIV positive and the other is not. The question inevitably arises as to whether or not they may use condoms to prevent…

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The Truth about Emergency Contraception

By Brian Clowes, PhD / May 10, 2017 /
woman about to take pill

What Is Emergency Contraception? Even with all of the different contraceptives and abortifacients on the market today, women forget to use their birth control, think their birth control method might have failed, or were coerced into sex. Many of these women resort to “emergency contraception,” a term that covers several drugs or devices that are…

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What Does the Catholic Church Teach about Sterilization?

By Brian Clowes, PhD / May 9, 2017 /

Some people refer to sexual sterilization as “Catholic birth control.”  This erroneous term, along with the misguided assertions of a number of well-known dissenters, has led to significant confusion regarding the Catholic Church’s teaching on sterilization. Because it separates the marital act from the transmission of human life, sterilization is condemned on the same grounds…

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Birth Control for Teens Who Are “Doing It Anyway”?

By Brian Clowes, PhD / May 9, 2017 /
teen with birth control

If pressed, many “family planners” admit that in an ideal world, all young people would refrain from sexual activity before marriage and remain faithful to their spouses after.  Such a society would have no HIV-AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases, very little unwanted pregnancy (and few pregnancies among unmarried teens!), and most likely a very…

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The Conception Conundrum

By Brian Clowes, PhD / April 20, 2017 /
pregnancy test

Human Conception: The Beginning of Life There is much confusion and disagreement today about when human life actually begins.  The official and public face of the medical profession insists that life begins at implantation — yet every embryology and fetology textbook in use today states that it begins at the instant of fusion between sperm…

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The Plague of “Contraceptive Imperialism”

By Brian Clowes, PhD / April 20, 2017 /
Group of young African kids walking with buckets and jerrycans on their head as they prepare to bring clean water back to their village.

What is the best way to conquer a nation and subdue its people? The great Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote in his classic The Art of War, “All warfare is based primarily on the deception of an enemy. Fighting on a battlefield is the most primitive way of making war. There is no art higher…

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Is Contraception Sinful in Ignorance of Church Teaching?

By Brian Clowes, PhD / April 19, 2017 /
The Last Judgment ~ Dirck Barendsz

There is a very high level of confusion among Catholics regarding the abortifacient action of various forms of birth control.  Unfortunately, this uncertainty is actively promoted by the very profession that should be trying to clarify health issues to the public.   Misinformation Regarding Contraception The modern medical profession acknowledged for decades that the beginning…

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The Strange World of Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Review

By Brian Clowes, PhD / April 18, 2017 /

About 25 years ago, I bought a complete set of Margaret Sanger’s journal The Birth Control Review and ambitiously set out to read every one of its 5,631 pages. The strange experience left me just a little uncertain about what is real and what is not. Sanger’s world has that effect on a person, because…

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Who Was Marie Stopes?

By Brian Clowes, PhD / April 17, 2017 /
marie stopes in her laboratory

Marie Carmichael Stopes was the United Kingdom’s answer to America’s Margaret Sanger. Both women lived during the same era.  Both were vocal eugenicists and birth control pioneers in their respective nations during the 1920s and 1930s, and their writings show that their views on eugenics and racial purity were identical. Most importantly, Marie Stopes’ legacy…

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Of Acorns, Eggs and Captive Violinists: When Does Human Life Begin?

By Brian Clowes, PhD / April 16, 2017 /
violin

The abortion issue is very complex, possessing many dimensions: personal, legislative, judicial, religious and scientific.  There is, however, one central debate around which every other point revolves ― the status of the unborn child.  Is it human?  Is it alive?  And, most importantly, is it a person?   Science: When Does Life Begin? Pro-abortionists commonly…

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