France's highest bioethics body, the National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE), sees the issue differently.

Under the current law, technologies such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and artificial insemination are restricted to heterosexual couples, and surrogacy is illegal.

President Emmanuel Macron has promised to change this law.

French media say a bill is likely to be introduced in Parliament in 2019.

In a document by Archbishop Pierre d'Ornellas (who is the head of a working group on bioethics of the French bishops' conference) signed by all French bishops, the bishops outline their concerns.

They say their purpose in intervening in the proposed law change is because they wished to offer an ethical perspective on the forthcoming debates, based on reason and in the spirit of dialogue.

The bishops predict liberalising the law would lead to the social acceptance of surrogacy, the rise of eugenics and the notion that children were commodities to please adults.

Furthermore, if the law were changed, society would be harmed because the treatment would enable fatherhood to be removed from the lives of children.

The CCNE, however, says "artificial insemination should be available to all women" regardless of relationship status or sexual orientation, reasoning that the inability to have children constituted a real "hardship."

However, it still upholds France's current policy on surrogacy, ruling that the practice is unethical no matter the "motivation," medical or otherwise.

According to a recent study for La Croix newspaper, 60 percent of French people support expanding the law to include single women and lesbian couples, as opposed to just 24 percent in 1990.

Source

• Crux Now
• France 24
• Image: CNN

In the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in Ohio, such behaviours include abortion, artificial insemination and "homosexual lifestyles".

Teachers have long been required to act in accordance with Church's teachings, but spelling out behaviours that can led to dismissal in a contract is a new development in the archdioces.

The archdiocese says it's fairer to teachers this way.

The new language comes after a series of lawsuits and other problems involving teachers fired over alleged doctrinal violations in Cincinnati.

Besides citing a broad range of prohibited activities, including use of a surrogate mother and sexual activity outside of marriage, the contract specifically bans "improper" use of social media.

Teachers would also be barred from "public membership" in organisations with missions conflicting with Church doctrine.

The new contract describes every teacher as "a teacher-minister", wording legal experts view as an attempt to prevent fired teachers from bringing wrongful termination charges.

A Cincinnati archdiocese spokesman said that if a person is to represent the Church as a teacher, then he or she cannot publicly oppose Church teachings.

Opponents of the contract said it will force people to lie to keep their jobs and that some good teachers will leave.

The Diocese of Honolulu in Hawaii has approved a similar contract for teachers in its schools.

The contract, which is called the "Standard Teacher Employment Agreement," is for full- and part-time teachers who must sign it every year they work.

It is scheduled to start in the 2014/2015 school year.

A Honolulu Catholic school spokesman said the ultimate goal is to provide positive role models for students.

"We want to be authentic about what our moral teaching is," he said.

"We're trying to be pastoral about this and centred on what's best for the students."

Writing for the National Catholic Reporter, Marianne Duddy-Burke of DignityUSA wrote that it is time for Catholics to tell their leaders that they have gone too far.

Sources:

• Columbus Dispatch
• Huffington Post
• Image: St Louis Catholic

"I was just catatonic," she said.

The shock turned into depression, as she began to mourn what she had lost. "I was a daddy's girl. I had a great childhood, and was the apple of my non-biological dad's eye. [I] adored my dad," said Blessing, a homeschooling mother of five, who lives in Tennessee.

"It really hurt to find out [my dad] wasn't mine in the way I thought he was," she said. "I grew up hearing about his dad being a cowboy. Everybody on dad's side of the family could tool leather like nobody…my grandmother, who is about to turn 100…they aren't mine anymore," she said.

Then, she began to mourn the loss of her biological father. "As much as my dad adored me, it hurts to know that the man who helped create me chose to have nothing to do with my life," said Blessing. "People are deceiving themselves if they think they can love somebody enough to make up for the person who isn't there."

She had never suffered from depression before, and her husband, an evangelical pastor, had no experience in dealing with an issue quite like this one.

Blessing was finally told her conception story due to concerns she had over her dad's failing health from progressive supranuclear palsy, a condition similar to Parkinson's disease. Once in robust health, her father was having an array of physical and cognitive problems, and his health appeared to decline more with each visit. Was Blessing genetically disposed to this disease? Would her husband have to take care of her the same way her mother now had to take care of her father? Continue reading

Sources

• The Catholic World Report
• Image: examiner.com

"For the archdiocese, this case has always been about an employee violating a legally enforceable contract that she signed," said communications director Dan Andriacco.

"Our schools are Catholic schools and the work that our school employees do is an extension of that ministry."

Continue reading

Christa Dias is suing the archdiocese over her dismissal, saying she was fired simply because she was pregnant and unmarried.

Dias said she and her same-sex partner had discussed the possibility that being pregnant and unmarried could cause a problem with her employers. But they thought she could explain that the pregnancy was through artificial insemination and not premarital sex.

The archdiocese's human resources director, William Hancock, told the court he recommended Dias be fired after he was told she was pregnant out of wedlock and later that the pregnancy resulted from artificial insemination.

He said Dias was fired because she violated the contracts she signed "saying she would uphold the teachings of the Catholic Church", Hancock said. "She made a choice against the five contracts she signed."

He said his recommendation was "based on the conduct, not the pregnancy", and testified he would recommend firing a man who had got an unmarried woman pregnant or who had participated in artificial insemination.

The archdiocese also said Dias was a ministerial employee and the US Supreme Court had said religious groups can dismiss those employees without government interference.

But Dias says she taught computer technology at two schools and had no ministerial duties.

Dias said she is a Christian but not Catholic and was told that didn't matter when she was hired. She said she thought the contract clause requiring compliance with Church philosophies meant she should try "to be a Christian woman and follow the Bible".

At an earlier hearing, the judge noted that Dias "admitted she was in a long-term homosexual relationship during her employment, and that she kept such fact secret from defendants as she knew defendants would view her relationship as a violation of the morals clause".

Sources:

Washington Post

Courthouse News Service

Image: USA Today