Quotations

«It is crucial to recognize that abortion is a symptom, not a disease. It is a very nasty symptom, it is a horrific thing -- but it isn't the disease. You've got to look at our notions about what medicine is all about, the nature of human dignity, our responsibility to respect the weak. Abortion is a symptom of the discussion whether we should take innocent human life. Historically, we've always said no. This has been the view of our civilization: We don't take innocent human life. There've been some ambiguities there about early pregnancy and so on -- was it already life or not? But that isn't the point. When life is there, you don't deliberately take it.»

«Euthanasia, of course, is the next round of that discussion, ... It's a lot more difficult because with euthanasia, the life wants to be taken. So you can't say, 'Poor fetus, nobody asked the fetus.' It's, 'Poor old guy, somebody asked him and he said, please do it.'»

«The autonomy argument has been widely used, very effectively used as one of the key reasons for the success of Pro-choice in North America. Its political success has been its use of the autonomy card, which is very much in keeping with American culture and with our generation in particular. Getting into the euthanasia debate, the same arguments hit you in the face. This isn't a question of autonomy; it's a question about what human life is.»

«It's a symptom of the commodification of the person. What is it the New Testament says? -- 'You are not your own; you were bought with a price.' Well, in this generation we believe we are our own, and so we can commodify ourselves, we can use ourselves as possessions of ourselves: 'I own myself, it's my body.' And what is more -- 'I own my children, certainly in terms of design and the procreative process. Therefore, I can kill; I can give life. I meet out weal and woe. I'm God.' Taking life and making life become two subsets of the same thing.»

«This is so tiny it can go where no one has ever gone before. (Nano-particles) can cross the blood-brain barrier. The general concern is that the safety work really has to be done or people won't trust the products.»

«A person is someone's totality. If your brain stem is alive and kicking, you are alive and kicking. It's because God thinks of us, irrespective of our awareness, that we are persons.»

«Certainly, if these reports are true, it's a tragedy for science.»

«What we do with dogs we may well end up doing with our kids.»

«It seems to me that our culture is going through a crisis of its vision of what it means to be human,»