Choice And Conscience

“What ought we to do?” In this third edition of Conscience and Conflict: How to Make Moral Choices, Jesuit theologian Kenneth Overberg discusses the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church, homosexuality, stem-cell research, globalization, terrorism and preemptive war, euthanasia, artificial conception and contraception, managed care and other tough issues that confront us as individuals and as global communities.

Choice and Conscience offers a fresh and insightful perspective on the highly debated issue of conscientious objection in abortion care. Satang Nabaneh’s socio-legal approach, which draws on both traditional legal scholarship and African feminist intellectual traditions, provides a nuanced understanding of how legal norms construct and maintain power relations. By focusing on the experiences of nurses in South Africa, Nabaneh explores the complexities of conscience, discretionary power, and socio-cultural and political factors that influence nurses’ decisions about whether or not to conscientiously object. In the wake of the recent rollback of abortion rights in the United States and the trend towards liberalisation within the African region, Nabaneh provides an important African perspective on how the international human rights framework should strike a contextual balance between freedom of conscience and ensuring access to abortion. Choice and Conscience will interest lawyers, activists, policymakers, scholars, and students exploring the dynamic intersections of law, healthcare, and gender politics. Choice and Conscience … stands as a significant and valuable addition to the ongoing global scholarship on this critical issue. It underscores the vital concept that intersectionality should occupy a central place in our examination of how various local contexts give rise to layered forms of privilege and disadvantage. Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health … Nabaneh’s study of “law in action” zeros in on South African nurses--gatekeepers who often object to the practice for reasons of “conscience.” Her interviews of these nurses and her analysis complicate our understanding of challenges to abortion access, providing lessons applicable not only to South Africa and other African countries, but everywhere where there is a gap between formal law and its application. Mindy Jane Roseman, JD, PhD, Yale Law School Written from an African feminist perspective, this book offers fresh insights into our understanding of the intersection between politics, mobilisation of discretionary power and the exercise of conscientious objection to abortion by mid-level providers. Charles Ngwena, Professor of Law, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria This book offers powerful insights about how informal and background norms in health systems function constrain or enable reproductive justice. Focusing on conscientious objection to abortion by nurses (including midwives) in South Africa, Nabaneh sketches the importance of a feminist analysis that is situated in Africans’ lived realities. Alicia Ely Yamin, Harvard University

The understanding and use of conscience in Roman Catholicism has undergone evaluation within the broader efforts of the renewal of moral theology called for by Vatican II. A review of the literature reveals that among contemporary Catholic moral theologians there are differences in the way conscience is understood and employed. These differences are reflected in the distinct perspectives of D

"The book deals with the questions of authority, magisterium, infallibility and conscience in a balanced and respectful way."--from the Foreword by Bishop William A. Hughes "What ought we to do?" In Conscience and Conflict: How to Make Moral Choices, Jesuit theologian Kenneth Overberg tackles this question and the gray area surrounding ethical dilemmas by providing a readable and up-to-date process for coming to decisions about crucial contemporary personal and social questions. This third edition includes discussion of the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church, homosexuality, stem cell research, globalization, terrorism and preemptive war. Overberg also addresses euthanasia, artificial conception and contraception, managed care and other tough issues that confront us as individuals and as global communities. "...makes available to a popular audience key developments in moral theology over the past 25 years."--Rev. Richard J. McCormick, S.J., James O'Brien Professor of Christian Ethics, University of Notre Dame "...assists the reader to come to grips personally with important questions in Catholic ethics today through the development of an intelligent, nuanced standpoint."--Lisa Sowle Cahill, professor of theology, Boston College

Literate Americans encounter the word “conscience” yet scarcely pay any attention to its source, its proscriptions in human affairs, or its power to affect human conduct. The Conscience is a weapon for survival and a tool to correct, protect and guide the individual in the often troubled course of his or her life. These pages illustrate its applications and recognition down through human history, beginning at the Fall of Adam and Eve. Whether or not the reader shares that biblical account of human history is irrelevant. The actuality of conscience in human relations and in the historicity of world events cannot be denied. Our pioneers did not underscore the word, but every brave progress to settle America involved the conscience of moral and ethical decisions. Is the land ours? Should I risk my family’s lives to make this journey? What confi dence should I place in our caravan leader? How shall I honestly manage to survive without theft, murder or mayhem? The very reality of survival, whether against a military enemy or on wilderness excursion, calls upon the human conscience to discern the risks are or the sacrifi ce or potential loss of life in the doing. Miller has included several interesting illustrations— a poem that deals with presidential lack of discernment, a river trip that involves the choice of dangerous adventure or bank-side, and a brief drama that illustrates the confrontation of Caesar with the original Christians. The conscience is directed, usually unbeknownst to the possessor, by God’s moral law of love for one’s neighbor ie another human being made in God’s image. This law of the conscienced accounts for this great nation’s compassion toward the world . . . and condemns abortion. euthanasia and fratricide. It also controls and includes the process of justice to protect the innocent.

Battaglia departs from the beaten paths of ethical theory by proposing that morality is social in nature, and that moral maxims and values are the result of interactive processes. (Philosophy)

Authentic accounts of saints and mystics of the Church who have spoken of a day when we will all see our souls in the light of truth, and fascinating stories of those who have already experienced it for themselves."With His divine love, He will open the doors of hearts and illuminate all consciences. Every person will see himself in the burning fire of divine truth. It will be like a judgment in miniature."- Our Lady to Fr. Stefano Gobbi of the Marian Movement of Priests

Religious liberty is usually examined within a larger discussion of church-state relations, but Thomas Kselman looks at several individuals in Restoration France whose high-profile conversions fascinated their contemporaries. Exploring their reasons and the repercussions they faced, Kselman demonstrates how this expanded sense of liberty informs our secular age.