IVF

I think that IVF is fine if you really can not get pregnant but you can carry the baby yourself. A surrogate, in my opinion, is weird to me but still morally acceptable. It is even weirder if the baby in the surrogate mother was not made from your husband's sperm and your egg. Why spend all that money if you can just adopt a baby which is basically the same thing in that case? I think that IVF is too expensive. It should not only be available to wealthy people; that is not fair. It should be there for anyone who needs it because they can't get pregnant. Although it is unnatural, I still think it is morally acceptable as long as it is the combination of your egg and your husband's sperm. It can get a tad sketchy too when dealing with which embryos to implant; that scares me. The idea that we can one day pick out the best embryos with the best possible genes is frightening and unnatural; it is like playing God.

Just Not That Into You

I loved this movie before but now, after watching it in class and being able to apply it to things that we have learned, I like it even more. The first character I chose is Jennifer Aniston as Beth. She desperately wants to get married to her live-in boyfriend of 7 years, but he does not believe in marriage and refuses, until the end. The first thing that we can apply this to is cohabitation. We discussed how this usually ends badly for a couple. This movie wants everyone to have a happy ending, so the co-habitating couple do end up together, although this is probably unrealistic. Another thing we can apply this scenario to is the whole idea of marriage in general. Beth tells her boyfriend, Neil, that if he will not marry her then they should not be together. We learned that marriage is committing to someone for you entire life; it is not an isolated event. Neil promises that he loves Beth and will commit to loving her for the rest of his life even though they are not legally married. He believes marriage is just showing-off your relationship and that two best friends do not get a "friend" certificate to prove their friendship or make it valid, so why should two people in love? We talked about how the ceremony of marriage is for the couple to affirm their love for another in the presence of their loved ones and to provide a living example to the rest of the church of what marriage should be. Another character is GiGi. She desperately wants to be in a relationship with someone. She is willing to sacrifice her pride and dignity for a man to like her. She is also willing to get serious with a man almost immediately. After thinking that a man likes her, she is seen in the movie looking up places to have her destination wedding. This is not good dating practices, according to what we learned and discussed in this class. Although, it is good to put yourself out there in a relationship, it is unwise to put yourself out there too much and risk getting hurt by someone who does not want to start a serious relationship after meeting once. She is too set on finding a soulmate; she thinks every guy that she meets could be the man of her dreams. Men do not necessarily think this way; they think more in the short term. Eventually, GiGi does find a good partner who she can possibly share her life with.

Changing Face Of Marriage

The idea of a domestic church is an idea that I can fully identify with. My parents wanted to expose me to Catholicism It was their decision and I am thankful to them for making it. It is the family who allows you to feel connected to God. I go to church with my family, we celebrate all of the sacraments together, and so on. It us through the family where our first encounter with religion and faith is established. My whole family has attended Catholic school since elementary school. There, our faith was further established and we learned more about what it meant to be Catholic. I really enjoyed the years that my siblings and I spent together in the same grade school. My brother went to high school after my 6th grade year and my sister's 3rd grade year. Now, my sister is a freshman at the Mount so we get to experience this together again. I do one day hope to continue the traditions that my parents have started for my siblings and I. I want to establish a domestic church and create a family that is based on Catholic values. I definitely intend to raise my kids as Catholics, to have a Catholic wedding etc.