David Albert Jones recently proposed an analogy between adoption and gender transitioning. Jones notes that adoption grants a child a social identity that is distinct from the natal identity and suggests that a similar situation might obtain in the case of gender transitioning. According to this proposal, a biological male who wishes to be called a woman is not assuming a false identity. Adoption and gender transitioning are significantly different, however: adoptive sonship participates in natural sonship in a way that (...) is not true of the relationship between a biological woman and a man who wishes to be called a woman. Attention is given to different forms of analogy, leading to the conclusion that the use of the word woman for a biological male would be either a metaphor or a very weak analogy. In contrast, the term son as applied to an adopted boy fulfills the fundamental signification of that word. (shrink)

In his most recent encyclical, Caritas in veritate, Pope Benedict XVI states that there is a profound connection between life issues and social justice. For example, when solidarity is undermined by abortion, it is also undermined in the relationship between the rich and poor countries of this world and between one generation and the next—with, in addition, disastrous consequences for the environment. In the encyclical, Benedict XVI states this connection but does not develop it to any great extent. In this (...) essay, the author expounds the connection, staying as close as possible to what the Holy Father himself says both in Caritas in veritate and elsewhere. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 12.3 (Autumn 2012): 449–460. (shrink)