Jumping to Dying

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

Executive Director

“Jump off!”

“Stop wasting our time, we’ve been here for ages, do us a favor!” the crowd gathered outside the McDonald’s restaurant shouted to the man 50 feet above them.

The 38-year-old, after eleven hours of police negotiation, relented and did not commit suicide. At least one witness was horrified at the crowd’s reaction. The March 2011 Daily Mail titled the story, “Sick Britain: The jeering crowds who urged suicidal man on McDonald’s roof to ‘jump off’.”

That was Britain in 2011. In the United States in 2012, we have our own ...read more

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Doing the Right Thing — a six part exploration of ethics

“A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon the world.”  Albert Camus

The class will consider the state of our world, ethically speaking . . .

How did we get into this mess? Is there truth, a moral law we can all know? If we know what is right, can we do it? What does it mean to be human? Ethics in the Market Place Ethics in Public Life

Monday Nights, 26 September – 31 October

7:00 – 8:30 P.M.

The Locker Room

7017 Concord Road

Brentwood, TN  37027

Cost:  $15

Register Here

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FSBO (For Sale By Others) Babies

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

Executive Director

As the airline steward offered newspapers to passengers, the front page story about child-snatching and selling in China caught my eye (International Herald Tribune, 5 August 2011). In at least one mountainous region of China, parents have not been assured of keeping the children they birth. The Ministry of Public Security recently announced that 89 children had been rescued from child traffickers, but it is the local government that the populace of Longhui County fears. In that county, family planning officials reportedly seized at ...read more

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New Year, New Dates; Not-so-New Challenges

Unlike people, all dates are not “created equal.”   My young nephew who was born on September 11th is learning by association that actions have consequences.  On the January date a friend of mine blows out his birthday candles, our nation will mark a wedge that has divided us for nearly four decades.  Since the Roe v. Wade decision on January 22, 1973, approximately 52 million embryos and fetuses have been “chosen” not to be born.  Our nation alone has aborted 52 million future citizens.

In some macabre way it seems fitting that abortion is in the news this week, although the ...read more

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Human Dignity and Human Embodiment

Human dignity is a hard concept to define and an essential one to understand in our rapidly changing biotech society. In Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics, Leon Kass has provided a liberal democratic view of human dignity. Human dignity for Kass rests in human embodiment and human finitude.

As Americans, Kass notes that we have long enjoyed the protection of human dignity as expressed in natural or negative rights. Our dignity has been protected from the interference of others in our “blameless liberties.” Therefore, we have the right to freedom from interference in expressing our ...read more

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