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Talking Catholic Medical Ethics with Dr. Mark Rollo

WQPH, our local EWTN affiliate, will host MCFL board member, Dr. Mark Rollo, speaking about life issues on a unique and brand-new radio show / podcast for the remainder of the year!

In the first episode, Dr. Rollo addresses the "R.O.E." Act, medical ethics, and the physicians commitment to "first, do no harm."

EWTN was excited to announce this entirely new show in the WQPH lineup from a man of unique perspective and experience.

Dr. Rollo's show, “First, Do No Harm,” will continue throughout the year on Sundays at 1pm.

From EWTN's radio network:

WQPH: Can you tell us a little bit about your background as a doctor and how you came to the Faith?

Dr. Mark Rollo: I am a cradle Catholic.  Our Catholic Faith was central to our life as a family.  We were regular church goers and we six children attended Catholic schools for much of our education. My parents were staunchly pro-life.

My mother entered the fray to oppose abortion when Roe v Wade was decided in 1973.  Her pro-life beliefs were clearly made known to all of us well before 1973 but in that year she joined Massachusetts Citizens for Life and helped start a local crisis pregnancy center. She regularly picketed planned parenthood.

My father was a surgeon and was president of the medical staff when Roe became law.   As president he could not vote on whether or not to allow abortions to be done at our local hospital.  He resigned so that he could vote against it.

I belatedly followed in my father’s footsteps to become a physician when I was 30 years old. I joined the USAF to defray the cost of medical school and as an Air Force Physician I was very blessed to work with many dedicated and mission oriented individuals. My wife and I are Fitchburg natives and after separating from active duty in 1991 we returned to this area where I practiced family medicine until this year when I retired.

The show’s title is taken from the ancient Hippocratic oath for the medical profession. With so many scientific advancements today, how do you see such history informing us?

Over the years of my practice I have seen the abandonment of the Hippocratic Oath.  2500 years ago the Oath specifically rejected abortion and physician assisted suicide.  These abominations are currently corrupting medicine.  Contraception, which is the separation of love and life, helped usher in the culture of death which I gradually came to understand.  As a result I dedicated much of my practice to modern methods of natural family planning which is fully in accordance with the Catholic Church.

What are you hoping to help your listeners appreciate better?

Ethics must form the basis of treating the whole person and it is my hope to shine a light on the medical ethical issues of the day from a Catholic perspective.  This will include not only contraception, abortion and assisted suicide but also such important issues as IVF, hospice, palliative care and end of life decision making just to name a few.  I am looking forward to delving into these issues.

Member DeeDee Dorrington describes each point in our law removed by the "R.O.E." Act. This bill would directly erase medical safeguards for women and infants in Massachusetts, and promote late-term abortion access for any reason over the safety of our daughters and our women. Watch the video below, and share with your friends! Pro-life and pro-choice voters agree: "R.O.E" is a a huge NO because it would permit infanticide, remove 3-day long grueling late-term abortions from the hospital setting, and and remove parental consent and judicial supervision of our underage daughters who might be at-risk for abortion.

Watch here.

Call the Judiciary Committee and tell them you expect them to reject "R.O.E" (S.1209/H.3320) by or before November 12th!

Chair Claire Cronin: (617) 722-2396

Vice Chair Michael Day: (617) 722-2396

Stephane Gray has been defending preborn lives since she was a child. She began speaking as an 18 year old, and that pro-life action lead her to found Love Unleashes Life and an international speaking career. She makes effective, loving, and compelling communication in defense of our most vulnerable look easy. But the truth is, the principle that human lives have value is simple, but defending that reality, and the preborn children in our world, is far from easy.

Gray will headline our sponsored virtual debate hosted by Harvard Right to Life on Thursday, October 22 at 7PM (register here).  

"There are more people working full time to kill [preborn children] in the world today than to save them," Scott Klusendorf told Gray early on.

The fact that more people were professionally employed to take a child's life in our society than to care for them convicted Gray to the core.

After decades using communication to change our culture and society, what can Gray teach us?

This recording produced by Shalom World  featuring Gray walks you through the basic questions raised, from the so-called hard questions (rape, incest) to the basic presuppositions we must challenge before we begin a dialogue. Most importantly, it highlights the fact that effective communication always begins with respect and love. Human beings are complex, and we come to public square with both our heads and our hearts. With 1 out 3 millennial children aborted, nearly everyone you meet will have a personal experience of abortion violence, not simply an intellectual understanding -- or misunderstanding -- of it.

To be effective communicators, we must build relationships, not arguments alone.

Finally, this recording raises the knotty philosophical idea of "personhood" -- and Gray's reply is invaluably clear. This question will also come up in our debate on Thursday. Don't miss that fantastic opportunity to see and hear Gray live.

Until then, watch Shalom World's  feature on Gray's personal story, and the remarkable description of how she approaches and answers every pro-life debate.

Click the video thumbnail to go to the full YouTube video

Stephanie Gray, who will headline our sponsored pro-life  debate at Harvard on October 22nd, is a renowned pro-life speaker. She admits that there are situations that make bringing a child into the world look terrifying and unendurable. What about the children who are abused? What about children born into poverty?

Those are all good questions, and the women, babies, and families in those situations deserve a response.

From us.

But that response does not have to be abortion.

So what can a non-abortion response look like? Because we not only need to know what that response looks like, we need to continue to practice those responses, meeting the eyes of our women, and touching the lives of our pre-born children with concrete actions that say I support you. 

This is a "non-abortion response:"

          It can look like a couple who fostered children.

·         It can look like a couple who adopted 3 little girls from China who had severe cleft palates which required multiple surgeries.

·         It can look like a family who adopted a set of siblings from the foster care system in their own country.

·         It can look like two people Stephanie met in her travels who adopted two children when their first biological child was only one.  They since adopted two more children, both of whom have Down syndrome and serious heart conditions, all the while giving birth to 4 more children.

·         It can look like an unmarried 28-year-old Stephanie met on a recent trip to the US: In the last 4 years she has fostered over 21 children and adopted 2 of them.

·         It can look like a retired couple Stephanie knew who moved from their farm into a home for pregnant women in order to mentor them in motherhood.

·         It can look like a pastor Stephanie encountered who is in his mid-50s.  He and his wife have raised their own biological children and are now fostering—which is leading to adoption—3 young children.

·         It can look like foster father Mohamed Bzeek who takes in terminally ill children.

·         It can look like a mega Church in Texas whose pastor told me he is implementing a program where his church members make it their mission to foster and/or adopt local orphans.

·         It can look like Love Life Charlotte, a beautiful pro-life ministry on a mission to embolden its church members to care for orphans through what they term “Orphan Care Hospitality.”  Whether through fostering or adoption, learn more about what they are doing here and watch this short video about the Malone’s who have welcomed two children into their forever home through this amazing program.

·         It can look like the Lott family who adopted 4 of their 6 children.

·         It can look like Ryan Bomberger’s adopted family.  His mom, once an orphan herself, made a promise to God when she was a young girl that she would be a mommy to those without one.  She grew up, got married, and adopted 10 of their 13 children (Ryan, one of the adopted children, was conceived in rape.   Having now grown up, he has since adopted two children.

Says Stephanie:

                                                "Is the abuse of children—pre-born or born—an unspeakable evil?  Yes.  Does it demand a response?  Without a shadow of a doubt.  Can children be rescued and aided without abortion?  The lived experiences of the examples above are living proof of that."

We thank you for being the proof that the response to pain, or to a vulnerable child, can be love. 

We invite you to join Stephanie, and the movement for life in Massachusetts, on October 22nd at 7pm online for a debate with philosopher, Peter Singer.

Register here. 

By C.J. Williams, MCFL Director of Community Engagement

What do you do if you find yourself in a pro-life/pro-choice conversation where the other person seems closed off to all of your arguments? You may know someone, or be the someone, who always knows a clear and convincing argument for the fact that human rights begin at conception. But now you're in that dialogue outside the clinic, or at your work place, pro-life to pro-choice -- and no matter what you say, you feel like you're building a bigger wall.

At this point, Stephanie Gray (who will headline our Dr. Mildred Jefferson Symposium at Harvard (virtually!) on October 22nd, debating Professor Peter Singer) says -- look to the heart.

If you and your friend are drawing farther apart, it's likely that this is a heart, not a head, issue.

One out of 3 of my peers lost their life to abortion. Can you picture how many people you meet each day, and can you now visualize the numbers personally touched by abortion?

The tips in the following video remind us that we are not on two sides of an insurmountable mountain when we discuss abortion with our peers or fellow citizens. But we do meet, sometimes, in front of a deep wound that runs like a chasm between us.

That wound is abortion. 

We cannot argue to a heart; we have to love it. Thus, most of our intentional encounters that seem to run up against a wall need to be brought out of the head and onto the level of relationship.

A few reminders:

--Meet your friend, or the stranger on the street corner, as another human being -- what is their story?

--Whom do they care about, and why does abortion matter to them?

--Is there something you can do to answer their questions?

--Do we really want to base our concept of human rights on an act of violence?

I highly recommend listening to Stephanie's interview and discussion below on How to Effectively Argue About Abortion. She gets to the heart of the matter; and that's something I'm sure she will also accomplish in our sponsored debate, on October 22nd at 7pm on the question of: Is Abortion Moral?

Please register now -- space on the virtual debate platform is limited!

Count me in! Register me now.

Watch the full video by clicking the image above.

She's the perfect fit for our Supreme Court, and for our nation: Feminist, brilliant, both a loving mother and a keen and balanced court justice. She's young. At 48, she will be the youngest justice in our highest court. Her progressive principles show up in her living, as you can see by her family and professional life. Balancing parenting responsibilities with her husband, she is a contemporary example of equality for women based on shared responsibility, rather than the violence of abortion (as Erika Bachiochi notes). 

So why is there this radical rift in public opinion about her nomination?

The answer may lie in her consistency. Because Barrett believes in authentic human rights and equality, she opposes abortion.

Amy Coney Barrett is pro-life.  Protecting women and the unborn from violence is the one and only thing that keeps her from sailing into our highest court -- and that opposition, much more than any of her qualifications or vulnerabilities, is something we should be focusing on.

Barrett isn't controversial.

But the opinion that a child's life is the price for a woman's freedom is one that needs to be stated plainly and examined all across our political spectrum. That opinion, and its proponents, should be under the microscope: not Barrett.

--

Read on for some notes on Barrett's judicial voting record, judicial philosophy, and background.

Live Action News writers note: 

Barrett has a brief but consistent record in support of life. In 2016, Barrett voted in favor of rehearing a 2016 case regarding an Indiana law that required aborted babies to be buried or cremated after some judges determined the law to be unconstitutional. The case was later heard by the Supreme Court, which upheld the law. Ginsburg was the sole justice to write a dissent to that ruling.

Barrett also voted to rehear a case regarding a law that would have banned abortions because of the baby’s sex, race, or disability, a law of which she was in favor. In 2017, in the case of Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc., Barrett joined dissenters in support of the Indiana law requiring doctors to notify the parents of minors seeking abortions.

In terms of her understanding of the position, Barrett states that she is accepting the nomination not to promote her personal opinions nor for others in her privileged position. “I would assume this role to serve you," she wrote this week,  "I would discharge the judicial oath, which requires me to administer justice without respect to persons, do equal right to the poor and rich, and faithfully and impartially discharge my duties under the United States Constitution."

Kelsey Hazzard, a lawyer and tireless advocate for the unborn from Florida, remarks that "[Barrett'] is a mother of seven, including a child with Down Syndrome. Those two aspects of her life are not in conflict. Judge Barrett's biography proves that, shockingly, work-life balance is achievable without dismembering any babies."

More detail on her career and record can be found at the National Review, which features an article discussing her judicial approach and background. Read it here.