Fertility loans clash with faith advice on procreation

 Two interesting articles on the issue of infertility and the finance industry show the need for oversight.

The first one is from the WSJ.    It talks about the loan industry that has been built up around financing the expensive treatments that couples or singles will undertake the get pregnant. Are doctors doing their patients a service to introduce them to finance companies that will loan them money for fertility treatments or do they see this as a way to boost their own  "production." Is this bad? After all they are businessmen/women. Why would they not want their practice to thrive?

"At a time when many traditional lenders are struggling, companies that join forces with doctors to make loans for in vitro fertilization, egg harvesting and other fertility treatments say their business is thriving.

Some doctors won't offer the loans. Others worry that doctors who invest their own money in fertility-finance companies will push the loans on patients."

Some doctors set up kiosks in their offices where patients could apply for the bank's loans.

Would the dr. have such an interest in these loans that they adjust their medical practices?

Also contentious are refund programs that offer money back if in vitro fertilization fails and patients don't take a baby home. One of IntegraMed programs refunds 70% of the $24,000 sticker price for a package of six IVF treatments if they all fail. If the first treatment works, the borrower still owes the entire $24,000, resulting in a larger profit for clinics.

The Catholic Church continues to take the opposite  view of IVF and fertility treatments that interfere with the husband/wife conjugal arrangement.

"The pope pressed the church ban against artificial procreation, saying infertile couples should refrain from any method to try to conceive other than sex between husband and wife.

"The human and Christian dignity of procreation, in fact, doesn’t consist in a 'product,' but in its link to the conjugal act, an expression of the love of the spouses of their union, not only biological but also spiritual," Benedict said.

Sperm or egg donation and methods such as in vitro fertilization are banned by the church for its faithful.

The emphasis on science "and the logic of profit seem today to dominate the field of infertility and human procreation," the pope said."

There is such a lack of regulation around this industry that any offshoot industry  like fertility loans have the potential for abuse of couples who are so eager for offspring that they will let their emotions override their principles and usual  precautions.  Then there are the intended consequences of IVF such as spelled out in the book Inconceivable when a  a dr.  mistakenly  implanted another woman's embryo during a treatment.

 

NC Register...asks who speaks for the Church...Bishops or Sr. Keehan....

Now this is getting really interesting. It appears that there may be some internal conflict within CHA if Sr. Carol Keehan is acting with board approval or as an individual. This article outlines the issues well.  

Sister Keehan was consulted ahead of the announcement by Obama of the "accommodation, but not the US Council of Catholic Bishops. So she greeted the announced accommodation with enthusiasm which was gleefully reported on the White House blog. The Bishops who had not been privy to the announcement in advance expressed "polite but wary "response until further study.  As an aside, the WH blog originally reported the support of Catholic Charities but CC has disputed that claim  and  I don't see a correction on the blog.

“Obama has made clear who is part of his ideological coalition and who is not. Discussions on the structure and restructuring of the contraceptive policy were conducted between the administration and pro-choice and feminist groups. The institutions targeted by the mandate — particularly those represented by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — were not in the room,” stated Michael Gerson in a column published in The Washington Post today.

“The administration engaged in no substantive consultation with Catholic bishops, who were only called to receive pronouncements. Interest-group liberalism is alive and well in the Obama White House,” Gerson wrote.

New Catholic Bishops President Chided Biden, Pelosi on Abortion

by Steven Ertelt | Baltimore, MD | LifeNews.com | 11/16/10 11:31 AM

The nation’s Catholic bishops broke with precedent that normally sees the vice-president move up the ranks to become the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Instead, they went with the archbishop of New York, who is strongly pro-life and has taken on pro-abortion politicians.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan defeated Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Arizona in a surprise victory, receiving 54 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Kicanas on the third round of balloting.
It is the first time since the 1960s that a sitting vice-president of the bishops’ conference did not ascend to the presidency.
The election is important for the pro-life movement because the president of the conference is the spokesman for the nation’s bishops on so many important pro-life issues. When it came to the national debate over ObamaCare, outgoing USCCB president Cardinal George of Chicago was adamant that the bill be opposed because it did not adequately prevent abortion funding or protect conscience rights.
In Archbishop Dolan, the USCCB will be headed by a strong pro-life advocate.
Dolan has been a strong friend and ally and has been called a “hero” by leading pro-life advocates in part for speaking out about Catholic politicians who support abortion.
“It bothers me if any politician, Catholic or not, is for abortion,” Dolan has said. “Because in my mind, we’re talking about a civil right, we’re not talking about a matter of Catholic Church discipline. We can’t allow the noble pro-life cause to be reduced to a denominational issue.”
In 2008, Dolan took House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice-President Joe Biden to task for misrepresenting Catholic pro-life teachings.

Pelosi to Catholic Church...preach immigration reform from the pulpit

 Imagine the gall and hypocrisy....... Pelosi does not want anyone preaching the pro life message from the pulpit but tells a Catholic conference they should preach about immigration reform from the pulpit. She calls is a manifestation of our living the gospel! But the killing of pre born children in the womb is off limits according to her pro abortion agenda..... Will they listen to her or challenge her? That's what I want to see.


Pelosi Says She's Told Catholic Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops They Must Tell Catholics Immigration Reform is a 'Manifestation of Our Living the Gospels'
http://www.cnsnews.com
May 10, 2010

Chicago nun: Sorry for 'pro-abortion' vs. 'pro-choice' comment

BHO sure has these nuns brainwashed. Nuns used to be so strong in the faith but I am shocked to see them leading the liberal fight and siding with the most pro abortion president in history and literally throwing the babies under the bus. Glad she was reprimanded. Time for the church to stand up not blend in. She is from Chicago...doesn't she remember how BHO opposed and spoke against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act to save babies that survive botched abortions.

Baird had set off a firestorm among abortion opponents

April 8, 2010

By ChicagoCatholicNews.com

The Chicago nun who oversees the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office for Racial Justice is apologizing for a comment she made making a distinction between being “pro-abortion” and “pro-choice.”
Sister Anita Baird had set off a firestorm among Roman Catholics who oppose abortion when she was quoted in a story on the anti-abortion Web site LifeSiteNews.com as saying:

“The president is not pro-abortion. The president is pro-choice. I think they are two very different things. To be pro-abortion is that you believe in abortion and you support it. And I don’t think you’ll find that the president has ever said that.”
Now, the archdiocese has posted a statement from Baird on its Web site in which she renounces her previous comments.
“I am affirming my belief in the teachings of the Catholic Church and understand that there can be no distinction between pro-abortion and pro-choice because the choice at issue is the choice to kill a child,” Baird said. “I also apologize to those who were scandalized by my statement.”

Her original comments in the story that appeared Tuesday on LifeSiteNews.com created an uproar in the anti-abortion world and have bounced around the blogosphere.
Baird could not be reached for comment today. '
Her office already was in the news for honoring — with Cardinal Francis George’s blessing — the Rev. Michael Pfleger, an activist-priest who’s been a target of some religious conservatives for his backing of Obama and his inflammatory, racially tinged comments during the election about now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.