Rev. Richard J. Taylor is the Spiritual Advisor for MaterCare International (Canada). You will find our collection of Rev. Taylor's homilies and writings here on our website.
Professional Resources
Systematic Review of Ovarian Activity and Potential for Embryo Formation and Loss during the Use of Hormonal Contraception
​
​
First Published January 3, 2019
https://doi.org/10.1177/0024363918815611
​
Abstract
The purpose of this review was to determine whether there is evidence that ovulation can occur in women using hormonal contraceptives and whether these drugs might inhibit implantation. We performed a systematic review of the published English-language literature from 1990 to the present which included studies on the hormonal milieu following egg release in women using any hormonal contraceptive method. High circulating estrogens and progestins in the follicular phase appear to induce dysfunctional ovulation, where follicular rupture occurs but is followed by low or absent corpus luteum production of progesterone. Hoogland scoring of ovulatory activity may inadvertently obscure the reality of ovum release by limiting the term “ovulation” to those instances where follicular rupture is followed by production of a threshold level of luteal progesterone, sufficient to sustain fertilization, implantation, and the end point of a positive β-human chorionic gonadotropin. However, follicular ruptures and egg release with subsequent low progesterone output have been documented in women using hormonal contraception. In the absence of specific ovulation and fertilization markers, follicular rupture should be considered the best marker for egg release and potential fertilization. Women using hormonal contraceptives may produce more eggs than previously described by established criteria; moreover, suboptimal luteal progesterone production may be more likely than previously acknowledged, which may contribute to embryo loss. This information should be included in informed consent for women who are considering the use of hormonal contraception.
​
Summary:
For this study, the authors looked at English-language research articles that focused on how hormonal birth control, such as the birth control pill, may affect very early human embryos. The authors found that abnormal ovulation, or release of an egg followed by abnormal hormone levels, may often occur in women using hormonal birth control. This may increase the number of very early human embryos who are lost before a pregnancy test becomes positive. For women who are thinking about using hormonal birth control, this is important information to consider.
​
"Professional discrimination continues"
​
My country - Poland is currently probably the largest country in Europe where the liberal cultural revolution has failed. Proponents of tradition can openly express their opinions, criticize, gender culture, openly call abortion a prenatal murder, what it really is. There is still the freedom unrestrained by the ideology of political correctness. The classic understanding of freedom and western civilization is defended.
​
Is human life in my country properly protected from the moment of conception ? Compared to countries that consider themselves better developed in terms of civil rights - yes. There are hundreds of thousands of unborn babies being killed in the world, in Poland we lose more than a thousand babies a year, most of whom are suspected or diagnosed with congenital malformation or developmental problems before birth. You can say – law number . But in fact very many. A thousand mothers each year participate in the murder of their own child. For some of them this means future complications in subsequent pregnancies, emotional disorders. A thousand doctors, as many midwives or nurses have broken conscience. The number of abortions increases every year. It is due to the growing number of in vitro procedures resulting in more children with developmental disabilities. The number of prenatal examinations aimed at detecting incurable genetic diseases has increased. Pregnant women are urged to undergo these tests. Those who, despite diagnosing a developmental defect, decide to give birth to a baby are ill-treated by doctors.
​
Perinatal Hospice and Neonatal Palliative Care
PROF. G. NOIA
The prenatal panorama of the last 40 years has shown lights and shadows in the defence of the nascent life and in the custody of a value whose preciousness should be transversal to every ideology and to any difference in anthropological evaluation. "This essential invisible to the eyes" should be the primary objective of every human aggregation such as photosynthesis which, although not visible, is recognized as the primary source of universal energy. In Italy, if on the one hand we have recorded a eugenistic attitude towards fragile life and burdened with malformations (the rate of eugenic voluntary abortion after the 12 weeks i.e. after the third month, it moved from 0.5% in 1981 to 5% in 2015), in the same years we have spread and developed the concept of fetal medicine, that is, the possibility of treating the child in utero even in conditions of severe pathologies (Noia G. et al. "Terapie fetali invasive"-Editrice Universo – Rome, 1998; Noia G. et al. "Terapie fetali"-Poletto Editore – Vermezzo-MI, November 2009).
​
John Henry Newman
​
​
Presented at the MaterCare International Rome Conference Workshop, 2017
​
"Newman's Doctors"
​
Introduction
A study of the life and work of Cardinal Newman provides the occasion for considering many aspects of the Catholic life, and especially of the Catholic life as a secular and ecclesial reality. He seems to have addressed the major issues of his day in so far as these had a bearing upon faith. The changes he witnessed during his long life have continued right through the twentieth century and into the twenty first century. The effects which he thought those changes would bring are everywhere apparent. The positive and negative aspects he delineated in what was taking place he patiently analysed in greater or lesser detail as occasion demanded during his lifetime. And he underwent many changes himself while remaining basically anchored in his perception of the overwhelming majesty of God and of his own relationship to him.
​
Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia
"Creating a resistance movement", Vincent Kemme
​
Excerpt:
Euthanasia in the Low Countries
The theme that has been assigned to me is “Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia - creating a resistance movement”. As I come from both the Netherlands and Belgium, the first countries in the world to legalize euthanasia, in 2001 and 2002 respectively, it might be helpful to offer some information on the practice of euthanasia in these – geographically – ‘low countries’ in Western Europe (3). First of all, in both countries, the numbers of reported (!) euthanasia cases have risen significantly: from 2000 to 6000 in the Netherlands and from more than 260 to more than 2000 in Belgium. In this talk, I will make no distinction between euthanasia and medically assisted suicides because the vast majority of medically assisted deaths in both countries are cases of euthanasia where the physician (or their nurse) administers death to the patient. So the distinction is not relevant for our reflection of today.
​