July 31, 2008

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Treating the Pill as Abortion, Draft Regulation Stirs Debate
Stephanie Simon/Wall Street Journal (07/31/2008)
Set aside the fraught question of when human life begins. The new debate: When does pregnancy begin? The Bush Administration has ignited a furor with a proposed definition of pregnancy that has the effect of classifying some of the most widely used methods of contraception as abortion.

Workers' Religious Freedom vs. Patients' Rights
Rob Stein/Washington Post (07/31/2008)
A Bush administration proposal aimed at protecting health-care workers who object to abortion, and to birth-control methods they consider tantamount to abortion, has escalated a bitter debate over the balance between religious freedom and patients' rights.

DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE
Dalai Lama challenged by new generation of Buddhist activists
Christiane Amanpour and Andrew Tkach/CNN (07/31/2008)
DHARAMSALA, India -- Gedun Gyatso, a 27-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monk, is so devoted to the Dalai Lama that when he was in prison, he placed a picture of him next to his pillow in open defiance of his jailers. The gesture earned Gyatso another month of incarceration on top of the three years he had served for his political activity. But today, Gyatso stands in defiance of the Dalai Lama's "middle way" approach to the long struggle between China and Tibetans over the fate of their homeland.

Jews debate the ethics of kosher food supply
Irene Sege /Boston Globe (07/31/2008)
The raid on Agriprocessors' Iowa plant has sparked debate in the Jewish community about the role of ethical considerations in the production of kosher food and sets the backdrop against which the moderate Conservative movement will issue guidelines Thursday for an ambitious new "hekhsher tzedek," Hebrew for "certificate of righteousness."

FAITH LEADERS
Rick Warren's 'Long-Term Relationship' with Rwanda
Cynthia McFadden and Ted Gerstein/ABC News (07/31/2008)
Rick Warren is leading a mission. He went to Rwanda, he says, to help alleviate the suffering in a deeply wounded nation, a place where 200,000 people have HIV and 800,000 children are orphaned.