Word: motherhood
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...entertainment and politics -- and their values -- to merge confusingly with one another. The season's first episode of the television sitcom Murphy Brown next month will have Murphy's reply to the moral criticism leveled last spring by Vice President Dan Quayle -- continuing the argument over Murphy's single motherhood that showed Republican strategists just how powerful the family-values issue might be in this campaign. At an even farther remove from reality, the cartoon character Bart Simpson last week responded on television to President Bush's remark that he hoped the country's family values would...
...government policy -- which is precisely Dan Quayle's complaint. Conservatives uphold the private realm, Democrats the public realm. Conservatives tend to stress individual responsibility and changing behavior to correct the problem; liberals are inclined to think first of programs to mitigate the bad effects of trends such as unwed motherhood...
This is no to deny that surrogate motherhood creates moral conflicts which need some legal resolution. But ironically, the biggest problem is the natural mother's desire biggest problem is the natural mother's desire to retain ties to her baby, not her willingness to sell it. Far from being eager to barter the kid away, these mothers often go to court for visitation rights precisely because they, like Cuomo, feel that the value of their child cannot be reduced to a mere compensation fee. After having promised OT give the baby away, they find that their ties...
Surrogate motherhood raises many problems, but the right legal safeguards can help prevent some of them. If the government is to intervene, however, it must take care to do so in a way that strengthens rather than weakens the family unit. The women who choose to share their maternal gifts with others must be encouraged and protected...
...American bishops can take comfort in the bedrock loyalty and surprising contentment among women parishioners. But the tug-of-war over the bishops' pastoral letter is only a foretaste of more severe conflicts that lie ahead. Hammered by new views of morality, authority, personal rights, the family and motherhood, the Catholic tradition is increasingly being cast on the defensive in Western nations. Women, whether or not they ever become priests or bishops or Popes, will help determine the outcome...